there are no locally bred arowana that i am aware of, nor do people i know in the aquarium industry, know of any. its not like there is a supply of fish coming from a local farm or a backyard breeder unless it has just occurred recently.
there had been rumours of greens being bred here but i think it was just a cover manufactured so the authorities would not identify the smugglers/ importers etc of that particular green batch, come to think of it, i think that avenue was raided anyway..
though i have heard of attempts at breeding any efforts to use the idea of "these fish are locally bred" would not likely be a successful way of an owner escaping fines or the fish being taken away. you would need to prove it in court.
sometimes you will find them advertised on petlink etc. mainly they will be ones that people have bought young and are reselling as mature fish once they do not want them.
also people might be soon trying to sell them before the government might place down massive fines for owning one, that is if they place them on the noxious list in the next coming year. if that happens a lot of people will no longer want to face the new heavy penalty.
heavy fines are now in place for other banned fish species here in oz but most of the species (those that hobbyists desire) that are on the grey list tare yet to be dealt with and moved to a certain kind of list. that included the arowana. that wont be far away now. so then it will become clear what the new laws or details will be.
till then, id hold your money or be very careful because from memory the fine could be like 20 thousand odd dollars and double for a business like a LFS.
the fines are plenty enough to make it worth the effort for policing the new noxious fish laws. once that is in place shops or traders will not dare advertise noxious fish.
some people say they can not police it but they will do a better job in the future.
the government raided a few shops early on this year that were selling most likely illegally imported specimens. so specimens are not as available as they were as these avenues are gone, people do not sell in shops anymore like they had been.
these fish were taken away. i heard rumour of a 50 k fine but cannot verify that because i know some people never got fined but just lost expensive fish.
they are not on the noxious list as of yet anyway so "potentially" you can own one that is bred here but there is a burden of proof required in that if you get caught with one, you would need to prove that it was bred here but also that its parents were legal here. i doubt that anyone has such documentation papers to show their arow entered the country decades ago ( like before the 1982 wildlife act) when they were not a cites banned fish.
you see, after about 82 they went on the banned for import list and just have stayed on that. so any local parents need to be rather old.
if someone had these old oz citizen fish, they could breed them and hand them around but i am not sure what cites would say or do about the selling of these specimens anyway. keep in mind that that law surrounding the burden of proof will probably be removed with a new law regarding the arowana (and other fish) put in place once they decide what to do about each specie.
