African arowana from Wes

[thebiggerthebetter]

Got a couple of African arowana from Wes a few months ago. Came in at ~8". My first ones.

They have a large head and seemingly disproportionate slim body, is that normal at this age and size?

Wes said he had no problem feeding them and they take anything. In my hands, they indeed take everything, namely pellets and cut fish, in their mouth and actively and strongly mouth them anywhere from a few seconds to a minute and then spit out. I can only assume they swallow some portion but it cannot be large because they are ALWAYS hungry and they have not been growing and retain that awkward disproportionate body shape.

I know they are special among the aros and are something of filter feeders and require very special feeding when very small. I thought that by 6"-8" they can be weaned off onto adult foods.

No?

 

[Dieselhybrid]

I have owned a few afro. In my experience the body shape is perfectly normal. They have an oddly large head when they're younger and they haven't built up any body fat reserves which is your main goal. Have a tiny throat Passage so they repeatedly suck food in and out trying to break loose small pieces to swallow. I never had a problem with them taking new foods, they sift through nearly anything including your substrate and the waste of your other fish. They make a great clean up crew in One respect especially once they're large enough to swallow larger particles. Sponge filters are good while they're young because the leftover food will stick to it and then they can feed periodically off of that surface. They have really high metabolisms so you want to keep them fed multiple times a day with as close to a constant food source as possible.

once they get over 16"-20" they are insanely hardy fish. They're very touchy at smaller sizes. Feed them heavily and frequently. They need to continuously graze at that size

Good luck you're going to love them with their high activity levels. Beware of Jardini-like aggression in some individuals at the 24"+ size

 

[Troy1015]

Mines pushing 14 15 just beem feeding live black worms, massivore, tilapia, just sucks it' spits it out and so on. Body shape it normal.

 

[Dee eng]

Love to have one of these monsters one day!

 

[thebiggerthebetter]

Thank you guys, especially Dieselhybrid. That explains a lot of what I have been seeing. Actually probably everything.

Yea, I remember the trick with the sponge filter but I thought that's necessary at real small sizes like a few inches. I understand now that this is beneficial to them at much larger but still juvenile sizes, such as mine are.

 

[Dieselhybrid]

They also like to jump!

 

[thebiggerthebetter]

They also like to jump!

Oh yea! I found out quickly when acclimating in a bucket. A net goes in the bucket, an aro goes out of the bucket.

 

[Dieselhybrid]

Oh yea! I found out quickly when acclimating in a bucket. A net goes in the bucket, an aro goes out of the bucket.

Haha!

I remember peeking into a holding container, cracking the lid....Aro comes flying at my face trying to escape, it saw the crack of light.

 

[jaws7777]

Nice pick ups. Really like afros

 

[thebiggerthebetter]

Minus one aro.

This happened a while ago, before I had a chance to follow your guys' advice on feeding heavily and often. We had a cold spell, the water cooled to 70-72 F, so I fed sparingly for a week. One of the arowanas didn't make it because of it. (The tank where the other arowana was, the presently surviving, was fed a lot more as it has more fish.)

You are totally right on the fast metabolism and the small throat.

The tail was removed by opportunist tank mates post-mortum. Final measure is 9.5".




Come to think of it, I bought an African aro from WetSpot 2.5 years ago. It came in and died in about half a day. $70. No refund (that's when I found out from WetSpot they give no DOA on arowana.) I had no idea why it died. Thought from the shipping stress. Now I know, they must have not fed it well enough at all for a few days. Once it reaches a certain point, it will die no matter what, it seems.

This is the WetSpot aro from summer 2015: