Here are a coupla posts I wrote on raising these fish. My 2 incher is now pushing 30":
Young ones don't require live food constantly. They require access to food. I raised them on dense culture crumbles, frozen bloodworms, and daphnia. Leftover foods made up the "constant" part of their feeding regimen. I raised them in bare tanks with sponge filters. The excess leftovers coated the surface of the sponge where the aro grazed until the next feeding. The sponges were cleaned out every other day to remove remaining leftovers before they could spoil.
This was the regimen until the aros reached about 8" and I was confident they'd begun to build sufficient fat reserves to go onto a regular feeding schedule.
The african arowana, Heterotis niloticus, is extremely difficult to keep alive as juvies in aquaria. They basically have to have food constantly available until they hit about 8" and their bodies start holding reserve fat. These are filter feeding fish that can reach 3ft in length.
I kept mine going by keeping it in a bare tank with sponge filters. The sponge filters were beneficial in that they attracted food to their surface which the aro grazed on between feedings. Water chemistry is hard and alkaline with rift lake salts added to the tank. Water changes are every other day and sponge filters each are rinsed off on alternating days to keep spoiled food off the aros grazing areas. The tank receives direct sunlight to 1 side for an hour or 2 a day. The water is pretty green (to match their native waters). Once he hits a foot long, I'll probably move him from the 120 to the 360 and stop the sunlight/algae routine. Young can be kept together for only a short time before they become intolerant of each other and begin fighting. However, I have other small growout species in with my aro and he's never bothered them. These fish are active in all areas of the tank and are always on the move.
Foods consist of frozen bloodworms, mysis shrimp, brine shrimp plus, daphnia, cyclop-eeze, commercial dense culture crumbles, and mosquito larvae.
This is an awesome species if you can resolve yourself to being extremely busy on their maintenance for the first 6-8 months or so.
