A few photos of my Merlion Dreamfish - Ultimate Ocean Blue Crossback. I've had the fish for two months. It eats white shrimp daily. It's kept in WTT with normal white shop light from Home Depot (LED). I think the fish is about 8-8.5 inches now.
Merlion Dreamfish - Ultimate Ocean Blue Crossback
- Thread starter stratos
- Start date
The "ultimate" label is just that.
WTT = White tank treatment; the sides of the tank are white. Asian aros are like chameleons; put them in a "white tank" and they show lighter, more washed out colours; put them in a dark tank and their colours darken and become more rich. The main reason to use WTT is to promote high shine, contributing to fish becoming a true "cross back" with full gold colouration on the 6th scale level.
The Merlion Dreamfish farm relocated from Singapore to Sabah, Malaysia a few years back. This is due in part to the Singapore government discouraging ornamental fish farms and encouraging aquaculture for food. Made sense during the supply disruptions of Covid I think.
Here are some photos/videos from the last Merlion Dreamfish to Canada in April 2025: https://www.dragonfish.ca/?p=1042
Maybe I'm dense but I'm trying to understand this, 6th scale from what point? And what makes it a crossback?
My apologyI asked the same question recently but it got overlooked
The Asian arowana has six main scales from the top of its back to the bottom of its belly. A "true" RTG (red tail gold) arowana has gold colouration from its belly up to its fourth level scale, but no more. A HBRTG (high back red tail gold) has gold colouration extending into its 5th level scales. And a "true" gold crossback has gold across its back (hence the term "crossback"), which means the 6th level of scales are all gold.
As an aside, the larger the scales a fish has, and the fewer in total number, the older the fish is in evolutionary terms. The scales of an adult arowana are silver dollar sized, and there are only the six levels of them; this tells you it is a very "old" fish. Compare that to your average cichlid species or characiin , and you see a huge difference in the scale size and number. And cichlids and characins are very "young" fish in terms of evolution. This explains in part why the arowana are referred to sometimes as being "living fossils."
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This may explain why many members of this forum, have very few but quite impressive scales themselves.
