African arowana at Fish Story

[Hao]

I've had lot of success raising young African Aros on live blackworms to get them to a safe size where they don't require constant feeding. (they grow extremely fast as babies). The thing I would have done differently was introduced crushed pellets and tiny tiny pieces of shrimp/tilapia with the worms at a younger size. They usually will eat everything once bigger as long as the food wasn't too big.

Here's an old thread I had on one of my baby African Aro growout if you are interested in looking through. (Unfortnately rehomed it when it was 22"-23 since gars were bothering it).

Thread 'My African Arowana'

Sep 4, 2017

Hello. I bought a 4" African Aro 2 weeks ago (August 20th,2017). I thought I would make a thread to keep track of its growth. I apologize ahead of time if the pictures are not the best (been lazy to scrub the algae).


08/20/17 (Day 1):



09/03/17 (2 weeks later) grew fairly fast!


Stay tuned for more.

• Hao
• Replies: 119
• Forum: Arowanas

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[Egon]

I’ve have an African Aro for about 3 years now. It consistently sifts through the sand to filter food. I feed it 5 times a day. The first feeding is flakes. I pinch the flakes between flat tipped tweezers I have. Tweezers that I use are the type that pick up stamps or something like that. Then stick the flakes below the surface of the water and let them get water logged so they sink. I do this 3 to 5 times a day. I also feed frozen brine shrimp and blood worms once a day. Then once a day I put some small sinking pellets in the tank. I think it’s important these fish have sandy bottom tanks so they can constantly graze all day long.
I’m happy to post pics of my set up if your interested.

 

[Hao]

This 85ish cm (34”ish) African Aro belong to an Indonesian fish keeper. It was raised from 20 cm (7.5”-8”) since November 2022. Tank isn’t really big but fish still grew really well! Main diet was really small pellets.

 

[thebiggerthebetter]

I’ve have an African Aro for about 3 years now. It consistently sifts through the sand to filter food. I feed it 5 times a day....

Thank you, Egon. Good description, easy to follow. Sounds like you go a very long way to feed your arowana a good and diverse diet. What size is yours at 3yo? Are the amounts sufficient for the fish to grow well? Would love to see your setup, of course.

This 85ish cm (34”ish) African Aro belong to an Indonesian fish keeper. It was raised from 20 cm (7.5”-8”) since November 2022. Tank isn’t really big but fish still grew really well! Main diet was really small pellets...

Wow. I'd say this is the biggest specimen I've ever come across in captivity. Thank you for this!

 

[Egon]

Thank you, Egon. Good description, easy to follow. Sounds like you go a very long way to feed your arowana a good and diverse diet. What size is yours at 3yo? Are the amounts sufficient for the fish to grow well? Would love to see your setup, of course.

My guy is just 12” I’ve talked to Hao about this and I think I’m feeding enough and the tank is big enough. I trickle the tank with fresh water 24/7. Most of my fish are around 16 years old. Maybe I just have a slow grower or someone is exaggerating a little, probably a little of both

 

[Hao]

Thank you, Egon. Good description, easy to follow. Sounds like you go a very long way to feed your arowana a good and diverse diet. What size is yours at 3yo? Are the amounts sufficient for the fish to grow well? Would love to see your setup, of course.


Wow. I'd say this is the biggest specimen I've ever come across in captivity. Thank you for this!

I don't know if you remember JohnPTC and his 10k gallon setup. He had like 2-3 giant african aros in that setup. Easily 36"+. They were massive! I've definitely seen a couple more big african aros 30"+ in captivity especially in Asia.

 

[Hao]

Here’s a photo of a roughly 90 cm (3 ft) African aro caught in Kenya by Fujita Kengo. Apparently the older local villagers said this specimen is still “small”. so I wouldn’t surprised if they reached closer to 4 ft in the wild at their absolute max.

 

[thebiggerthebetter]

Egon Thank you. Sounds unusually small for the age. I wonder why. In my prior couple attempts they reached a foot in half a year or so. Good to know anyway that there can be differences.

Hao Thank you. I remember JohnPTC but he was participating little when I joined or so it seemed. I saw his 10K. Need to revisit his threads on it to rediscover his african aros. My reading says they should grow to 3ft easily and more. Still, even in your experience there is a glaring scarcity of peers showing captive grown big ones. Sounds like they are harder to raise to big sizes, harder than RTC, silver arowana, and other hardy hobby staples

 

[Egon]

Correction: just checked my pics and my Afrowana is 4 years old! It might be 14”. It’s hard to tell. It swims so fast I can’t get a good pic!!! Fins are perfect, seems heavy not skinny. Here’s a few pics and a FTS

 

[Hao]

Egon Thank you. Sounds unusually small for the age. I wonder why. In my prior couple attempts they reached a foot in half a year or so. Good to know anyway that there can be differences.

Hao Thank you. I remember JohnPTC but he was participating little when I joined or so it seemed. I saw his 10K. Need to revisit his threads on it to rediscover his african aros. My reading says they should grow to 3ft easily and more. Still, even in your experience there is a glaring scarcity of peers showing captive grown big ones. Sounds like they are harder to raise to big sizes, harder than RTC, silver arowana, and other hardy hobby staples

Oh yes. You could also check YouTube videos. I forgot if he had his own channel or the videos were on MFK YouTube channel.

Yeah, I’ve definitely seen a lot of hobbyist unsuccessfully raising African aros over the years. Generally feeding issue. Even the ones that do live, alot of them are quite underweight when you compare them to their wild caught counterparts. Despite all that, there are still plenty of people who were successful in raising them beautifully. But like you said the success rate is definitely lower than the typical monster fish mainly because of the feeding issue.

Also regarding Egon’s experience, it’s definitely bound to happen, not every fish will reach the “max” size. I guess it’ll come down to genetics and care. Over the years, I’ve seen people keeping Australian lungfishes that are way too small for its age like there’s a few I’ve seen that were 20-30 years old and only around 2 feet in length. I’ve seen an 3-4 year old Australian lungfishes that’s maybe about 10”-12”. Even alligator gars, seen some around 5-20 years old but only 20”-30” in size. (Stopped growing already.)