ARROWANA
Raising and Keeping
Arrowana are one of the largest, most graceful, and impressive of the freshwater tropical fish
that can be kept in an aquarium. Depending on species, they will grow to nine foot long in the wild. Though a large fish, they can double back on themselves when turning around almost like folding a rope back on itself. They are not colorful as some tropical fish, but their size, grace, and near constant motion put them in a class
of their own.
Most often, they are kept by themselves in a very large tank, but my 27 inch black, and my 33
inch silver share their 125 gallon tank with (1) 10 inch Oscar, (1) 15 inch black ghost knife, (1) 7
inch royal plecostomus, (2) 7 inch stripped raphael cats, and (1) 5 inch spotted raphael
cat.
Tank mates must be chosen carefully, because the arrowana is a peaceful fish with no real means
of protecting itself from the more aggressive species, but it WILL swallow any fish that it thinks
will fit into its mouth!
You may get an arrowana as small as approximately 3 1/4 inches
or as large as you like, but I prefer to obtain them as young as
possible without the egg sack. If you buy them with the egg
sack still attached, you most likely just wasted your money.
Before purchasing a young arrowana, I suggest that you set up
a 29 gallon tank with about two dozen heavy female guppies
(NO MALES) for a food supply. Add a few Corydoras cats
for pollution control (they won't bother the baby guppies). For
a young arrowana, I prefer to use an undergravel filter system
with the airlift tubes positioned to create a current in the tank
for the young arrowana to swim against. The guppy babies
won't get sucked into this type of filter either. Lastly, make
sure that the tank is covered with NO openings! The arrowana
is called the jumping fish for good reason, and it WILL jump
out of the tank if given the chance! I have lost a couple this
way, including an 8 inch black. No one could talk to me for
a week after that. A young lady I talked to on the internet
lost a 35 inch silver this way too!
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Picking out your new pet....
As with picking out any new fish, you want to examine your
prospective pet for abnormalities and disease. Always pick
a healthy and full specimen. The emaciated fry are usually a
lost cause, ready to die as soon as you get them home.
Now for the fun part..... I have purchased many young
arrowana over a period of about 26 years now, since my
good friend, Jim Peterson, of Peterson's Pets in Rome, New
York first introduced them to me. With the shop owner's
permission, I throw a large flake of fish food into the tank.
The only young arrowana that I would purchase would be
one that strikes the flake. Now I am assured that the young
arrowana, will have a good chance of survival in my tank!
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Which species do you want? In the U.S. the most common
are the black, and the silver from the Amazon area. There
are Asian, and Australian species available too, but they are
more expensive. Personally, I prefer the S. American species
for their fins, but I realize that other folk prefer the color of
the other species. (You may follow the links at the bottom of
this page to see the difference.) The black is a strikingly,
beautiful fish in the fry stage, but loses the color quickly. The
black arrowana will only grow to about 39 inches. The silver,
according to one tropical fish magazine, which I called about
nine years ago, may grow to six foot in an aquarium. So there
is a size difference!
If the caudal (tail) fin can be used like a pup's paw for an
indication of probable growth, then I've just got to tell you
about my fish..... The black is now about 6 ½ years old and
about 27 inches long. Its caudal fin is very small in relation
to the rest of the body. The silver is now about 5 ½ years old
at about 33 inches long. Its caudal fin is still quite HUGE in
relation to the rest of the body.
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Feeding the little tyke. Arrowana, as mentioned, will swallow
any fish that they think they can. So if you have set up your
tank as I've explained above, then you're off to a good start.
You will want to break your arrowana of eating live food,
because it is more expensive, and it will keep the arrowana
more aggressive, and finicky. Hopefully, your fish will hit
the flake food as you feed the guppies.
I have also noticed that young arrowana may not eat if the
tank temperature falls much below 80 degrees F. You may
have to replenish the guppy supply a couple of times, but try
to switch to non-live food as soon as possible. A good food
is freeze dried blood worms, but don't feed these while you
have guppies in the tank - the guppies seem to eat this food
and die. The next food I would use on a growing arrowana
would be any of the floating mini pellets. The key word here
is floating, because the arrowana is a top feeder, and it will
usually ignore anything that drops to the bottom. When they
are well grown, I have cut large shrimp in half (the long way),
de-shelled and dangled it from the top of the tank as a treat.
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When the fish grows to the 2 foot length, it is a good idea to
weight the cover glass to keep it in the tank. This lesson was
learned the had way.... My silver got nervous, as arrowana
can do, jumped, dislodged a heavy plate cover glass, flew
about 3 feet, hit the wall, knocked over a planter, and landed
on the floor. All this from a height of 6 feet (the top of the
tank). Currently, I use water filled gallon plastic milk con-
tainers to keep the cover glass in place. I am in the process
of making a wet dry filter system filled with gravel powered
by two pumps rated at 400 gph each to accomplish the same
task and provide a better filter system than what is now in
use. This brings us to the next topic: filtration.
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Perfectly clean looking water may be terminally poisonous
to any fish. Ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate, are the byproducts
of overfeeding and fish waste. A filter system is necessary
which not only clears the visible debris from the water, but
also biologically breaks down these byproducts. An under-
gravel filter will do this, but it will accumulate much debris
under the plates which can be a real pain if the need arises
to move the tank. I have moved my black a number of times,
and have damaged its barbels and fins in the process. The
last time I moved both the black and the silver was about a
year ago, and they were almost as large as they are now. I
ended up draining the tank so I could get a bath towel under
each fish to carry them unharmed to a 65 gallon holding tank,
and then again to their's once it was set up (you haven't lived
till you have moved a large arrowana this way). In the process,
I removed the plates and gravel so to not harm them. The
water turned to mud, and I know that it couldn't have been
healthy for their gills!!! An undergravel system does rob
oxygen from the tank, and that is not good for the fish. A wet
dry system will accomplish the biological breakdown without
depleting the oxygen. Just a thought.... Frequent partial water
changes are one of the best ways to keep the tank healthy,
because low ph problems are common with large fish, and the
water changes help take care of this as well as the other by-
product problems. |
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NEW TANK SET-UP
The following is an E-mail reply I gave to answer questions for
someone who brought home a 75 gal
aquarium and a very young silver arrowana at the same
time.
Hello,
Sorry to hear of your loss.... This sounds as
though it is your first aquarium set-up. If I
am wrong, I'm sorry, but the store that sold
you the fish and the tank on the same day
should have made sure that you knew what
you were doing before they sold you the fish
and tank together.
1) I never put fish into a new tank until it has
had water and filter running for about a week.
If you cleaned the tank first, I hope that you
rinsed it very, very well. Never use soap to
clean a tank! The PH should be 6.8 - 7.0 (PH
test kits are sold at all pet stores).
1a) Water temperature should be maintained,
with a good aquarium heater, at about 75 - 80
deg.
1b) Salt additive: Aquarium salt is sold at all
pet stores (that I know of) and should be
added according to instructions on the box.
1c) Power filters: If used, should have
protective strainers in place on intake tubes in
order to NOT severely injure or kill your fish!
1d) You will want an air pump with air stones
in order to keep the oxygen levels in the
water at safe levels.
2) After a week, if all the above conditions
have been met, I would add the guppies.
Feeding should be very light for about a
week, because the water chemistry is terrible
at this time. Very bad for the health of any
fish. It takes time for the bacteria to multiply
to the proper levels in order to maintain
proper water chemistry. Cat fish can handle
this bad water better than most other fish, but
you still want to be very careful.
Your arrowana may have died from: the
water temp., Chlorine poisoning, damage
from the power filter, an attack from the
plecos (rare, but I have seen hungry plecos
kill other fish before), starvation.....
Did your fish have an egg sac when you
bought it? Did you try to feed it in the store
with some flake food?
Let me know...
Again, sorry for your loss
Bruce |
E-Mail me at:
zoedotes@zoedotes.com
I would be happy to answer any questions.
Visits since 12/23/98-
ARROWANA LINKS
Arowana's Realm
Arrowana World by Desmond
Australian Arowanas
Bud's Dragon (Arowana)
Ed's Tanks
Thomson's
Arowana Corner
You’ve probably seen this fish symbol before, but do you know where it came from? It has been used for almost 2,000 years by people as a means of identification during the times of the Roman persecutions. One person would draw one half of the fish symbol in the dirt with a stick. If the other person finished the symbol, they knew that they were both Christians They used this symbol first, because the Cross (the Romans were still using them) was too repugnant. Jesus told His disciples that if they would follow Him, that He would make them fishers of men.
Centuries later, the Greek letters were added. Pronounced ICHTHUS, it means fish in Greek. Ichthus is an acronym which stands for:
JESUS CHRIST, GOD’S SON, SAVIOR.
OK, so what is this stuff doing on this page? Well, just as tropical fish can’t survive, nor thrive in an aquarium without the proper filter, neither can we in this life. The Bible says that we are all sinners, and that sin will bring us death. Jesus came, not to just clean our sin, but to take our sin away and to give us Eternal Life with His joy, His love, and His peace - right here and now!
If you would like to learn more about what the Bible really says about this, then click here for my Scripture Studies -
How to Really Get to Know God.
