I bought a 5 inch Black Arowana back in October 2023. I had bad luck with previous Black Arowanas when I put them in my 220 gallon community, so I set up a 29 gallon to put him in until he grew a couple inches. It’s been about 5 months and he’s only grown 1-2 inches. Is that normal? Did I stunt his growth by putting him in such a small tank? He’s now in a 90 gallon by himself. Any advice will help thanks!
Black Arowana Stunted Growth?
- Thread starter MooseMann
- Start date
An inch or two in 90-120 days doesn't seem out of line to me. You should be fine. Watch your water quality as they're a little sensitive in my experience to NO2/NO3 and particularly so when they're that young. Any chance of you posting up a pic of your setup?
I do an 80 percent water change weekly to keep nitrates down, this is him in the 29 gallon before I moved him in and the 90 gallon that he’s now in.
Hopefully the Black arowana hits a growth spurt soon. You are doing all the right things for your arowana.
It does seem that way but in that you've had some challenges wrt Arowana in the past let's take a deeper dive here just for fun. Only you know what the actual conditions are so anything you read from me or the others here may be guesses. Here we go...
- The fins on that baby Aro have a tattered edge and they normally are smooth. That tattering usually comes from the fish freaking out over something and in the ensuing frenzy fins take a beating.
- There are toys on the floor in the background and I'm guessing you may have a young family. If kids are flicking on the light in an otherwise dark room, occasionally giving the tank a smack or even just banging into the base of the tank while playing truck and tractor games or other similar kid stuff know that the Aro is a one trick pony and will attempt to bail out of any situation that gives it a scare and that, too is a frenzied attempt and can be reflected in damaged fins.
- I'm guessing you're being careful of temp matching and you don't have a crazy pH that conflicts w/ its native waters.
- I see you're feeding it a Hikari floating food but also have what looks like it might be Massivore as well. Aro's aren't big fans of grabbing food off the bottom so if you toss Massivore in every once in a while I'd stop doing that unless you already know he really likes it.
- If he was 5" when you got him and now he's 7", that's a 29% increase in length which in my view is not indicative of a problem.
IIRC though you've lost at least a couple of these prior which is normally an indication that something's amiss. Keep the group posted and we'll do what we can to help walk you through anything we notice.
When you walk up to the front of the tank how does that little fish respond?
Does it wig out when your kids go up to the front of the tank?
Does it have any marks near the top of its head to indicate its been pinging off the underside of that lid once in a while?
For a tank that doesn't have a light on top those plants look pretty awesome which I'm guessing means they may be plastic. That's a deep tank and he should only be using the top few inches so if those are plastic they're not doing him much good. I might be inclined to yard them out (if they're plastic) and replace them w/ branches or similar (no sharp pointy ends) and while I was at it I'd probably ad a floating plant. Floating water sprite I've used for baby Aro's w/ a lot of success. The'll be happy w/ Frogbit or Duckweed, etc. but they do enjoy cover. A lot.
If you're tempted to feed live to bulk him up a bit know that it would definitely work but I'd avoid it like the plague. If you've got that fish on pellets now you're far better off in the long run leaving him on pellets. It might take a few feedings for him to figure it out but they will take blood worms for certain and I used the small cubes, quartered them and thawed it initially so mine wouldn't have to learn to take ice with his dinner.
Good luck... this one will last.
Thanks for the insights, obviously I’m trying to give him the best environment as possible. I do have a little boy that likes to play. As I watch him play the arowana seems to go about normally. When I go up to the tank he knows when he sees me that it means food. He eats great, will eat floating pellets, the massivore sinking are for my stingrays. He also loves shrimp. When you talk about decorations do you mean branches that reach the top for him to swim through? Along with some live plant coverage?
Not so much. Those plants are in there for you as the Arowana has no use for them and normally doesn't even go that low in the tank unless there's a reason to which would be at least a little unusual. I'd not sweat that aspect so much other than to recognize that that's a grow out tank and in a grow out the only things that are important are those that are there for the benefit of the fish. Nowhere in that fish's future will plastic plants be necessary or even typical. If you look at the other tanks posted on this site that have an Aro in them it you'll notice that plastic plants are not normal. You'll sometimes find sticks, rocks, floating plants and the like but plastic, not so much; the Aro won't use those plants.
The branches don't need to necessarily reach the top but they would in one of my tanks. You can think of them in two ways:
1) That they're replacements for the plants and at least somewhat more likely to be found in a tank that fish will inhabit in 5 years. They're also replacing tank decor that you liked to look at which is why you put them in there.
2) That the branches go all the way to the top and provide the Aro at least a little bit of security. Baby Aro's commonly hang out next to something near the surface and it likely provides them some feeling of security. They'll venture out into open water but as fry or juvie's that feeling of being able to hide is an inseparable part of their nature. It won't go away and using it to your benefit when you can is better for the health of the fish.
Take a look at the environment that fish evolved in and you'll see bugs, occasional bits of surface cover, sticks, stumps and roots, etc.
And oh yeah... they dig baby crickets.