Ok, so here's a video of the arapaima eating food sticks, I've you've followed this post since it's beginnings you may notice a difference in the size of the fish. The water may seem to be cloudy but it's just my phone's camera quality, water is actually cristal clear.
Talking about the water, I just wanna give some points on how I'm managing to keep this fish alive for research purposes, I know someone in the future will open this thread looking for info I once craved.
Water:
I've been doing a 70% water changes twice a week with reposed non chlorinated water. Since I live in Costa Rica and climate in my province is particularly hot, I haven't been using a thermostat for keeping the temperature up, It's usually around 26-28C (79-83F) anyways, but if you live in a cold climate and will need to use a thermostat anyways, then go for the 30-32C (86-90F) range, it will help your arapaima metabolize faster and if you're going for a baby arapaima I know for sure it'll make your baby hungrier.
Lightning:
I've notice that having artificial lights on your tank doesn't really bother the Arapaima very much, you technically don't NEED them, but hey, the Arapaima is a very cool fish and it looks awesome under some white lights.
Filtering:
I've been using sponge filters only with some heavy water pumps. Make sure you see a lot of tiny bubbles in your tank's water, aerated water is good for your pima. When babies you can see them breathing through their gills, so might as well help them by having a water filled with air.
Decorations:
I've used only a couple of large rocks in my aquarium, I've heard of people adding a lot of natural decore in the tank, but I'm just going with as little decoration as posible.
Food:
So this is the part that IMO needs more attention with baby arapaimas since most baby arapaimas end up dead due to starvation. I've said this several times already in this post, baby arapaimas don't eat because they're hungry, they just really attack whatever is on their way that looks like a prey regarding if they're hungry or not. Arapaima, as many other pet, have their own personality, so you may be in front of a pig of an Arapaima who eats whatever since baby, or you may end with an Arapaima like mine who just swallowed things that were still moving inside of it's mouth (live prey), throwing out everything else. If this is your case, then do what I did... I had a separated tank filled with feeder fish (I used mosquito fish and baby tilapia), this will help you get rid of any parasites that may live in the fish you're giving to your arapaima. Each day I placed at least 5-8 fished in the tank, some of them were eaten by the arapaima almost immediately, the rest was left free-swimming in the tank (they were usually eaten at night, Arapaimas are very active at night as well). I gut fed the feeder fish with the sticks, but also placed like 4 sticks in the arapaima's tank that ended up being eaten by the feeder fish. I continued feeding the arapaima with live fish and adding the food sticks on the aquarium for over a month until one day out of a sudden the arapaima took one of the sticks and swallowed, that was a huge surprise for me, two days later, the arapaima had finally associated the sticks with food so since then I'm feeding only with food sticks, which give the arapaima a nice round belly.
If I'm missing any other valuable info please let me know!
Cheers!
Talking about the water, I just wanna give some points on how I'm managing to keep this fish alive for research purposes, I know someone in the future will open this thread looking for info I once craved.
Water:
I've been doing a 70% water changes twice a week with reposed non chlorinated water. Since I live in Costa Rica and climate in my province is particularly hot, I haven't been using a thermostat for keeping the temperature up, It's usually around 26-28C (79-83F) anyways, but if you live in a cold climate and will need to use a thermostat anyways, then go for the 30-32C (86-90F) range, it will help your arapaima metabolize faster and if you're going for a baby arapaima I know for sure it'll make your baby hungrier.
Lightning:
I've notice that having artificial lights on your tank doesn't really bother the Arapaima very much, you technically don't NEED them, but hey, the Arapaima is a very cool fish and it looks awesome under some white lights.
Filtering:
I've been using sponge filters only with some heavy water pumps. Make sure you see a lot of tiny bubbles in your tank's water, aerated water is good for your pima. When babies you can see them breathing through their gills, so might as well help them by having a water filled with air.
Decorations:
I've used only a couple of large rocks in my aquarium, I've heard of people adding a lot of natural decore in the tank, but I'm just going with as little decoration as posible.
Food:
So this is the part that IMO needs more attention with baby arapaimas since most baby arapaimas end up dead due to starvation. I've said this several times already in this post, baby arapaimas don't eat because they're hungry, they just really attack whatever is on their way that looks like a prey regarding if they're hungry or not. Arapaima, as many other pet, have their own personality, so you may be in front of a pig of an Arapaima who eats whatever since baby, or you may end with an Arapaima like mine who just swallowed things that were still moving inside of it's mouth (live prey), throwing out everything else. If this is your case, then do what I did... I had a separated tank filled with feeder fish (I used mosquito fish and baby tilapia), this will help you get rid of any parasites that may live in the fish you're giving to your arapaima. Each day I placed at least 5-8 fished in the tank, some of them were eaten by the arapaima almost immediately, the rest was left free-swimming in the tank (they were usually eaten at night, Arapaimas are very active at night as well). I gut fed the feeder fish with the sticks, but also placed like 4 sticks in the arapaima's tank that ended up being eaten by the feeder fish. I continued feeding the arapaima with live fish and adding the food sticks on the aquarium for over a month until one day out of a sudden the arapaima took one of the sticks and swallowed, that was a huge surprise for me, two days later, the arapaima had finally associated the sticks with food so since then I'm feeding only with food sticks, which give the arapaima a nice round belly.
If I'm missing any other valuable info please let me know!
Cheers!
