To determine the effect of fish age and size on the endurance of larvae from hatching through the onset of settlement, we evaluated the swimming duration of A. percula larvae at 0, 4, and 8 dph (day post hatch), and of E. lori and E. colini at 0, 10, 20, and 30 dph. At the start of each trial, an individual larva was acclimated to the flume for 2 min with water flowing at a velocity of < 1 cm s-1. If the larva displayed normal orientation and swimming behavior during acclimation, then the velocity was increased to a fixed setting of 2, 4, 6, 8 or 10 cm s-1. Swimming duration was recorded as the total time that a larva swam before being expelled from the flume or collected on the back mesh, minus the 2 min acclimation period. At slower flow velocities (2 – 4 cm s-1), some late-stage larvae (i.e., A. percula: 8 dph; Elacatinus spp.: 30 dph) chose to settle on the bottom rather than swim in the water column and were therefore removed from the data set.