First day as an arowana owner....

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landmineyouth

landmineyouth

Gambusia
MFK Member
Sep 3, 2005
486
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16
North Miami
www.djrobriggs.com
Here is my new guy, still in the bag on the drive home from my LFS. He is a silver, wild caught from S. America. About just over 3" in length, I paid $30 flat for him.

2011-09-22 18.57.08.jpg

He is going to be temporarily housed in a 75 gallon for the next 2 to 3 months while he grows a little larger, and as I get his new home, a 300 gallon, set up and running. He will be sharing his 75 gallon with a pair of fully grown 6+ yr old silver dollars in the mean time.

I am hoping to learn all I can as this is my first venture into aro' owning, but I have wanted to own one for years now. Finally felt with a 300 gallon (and a 350 gallon-wide in storage) in my ownership, that I was ready.

If anyone has any newbie tips, feel free to post. NOTE, I am no EXPERT, but I am not a newbie to FISH KEEPING, just Aro owning.

Thanks!
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2011-09-22 18.57.08.jpg
 
Sorry to say, if it is only 3" then not wild caught. Wild collected baby silvers are available in the spring. A wild collected silver aro now would be at least in the 7" range.

Personally I would raise the aro to 10" by itself. The SDs may not cause problems but they are fast moving large fish that can spook your arowana, causing it to jump. Make sure every single hole in your aquarium top is sealed and weighted. No matter how small, many of arowana meet their death dried up on the floor.

Keep your aro off of live feeders until it is eagerly eating a quality pellet food. Once on pellets you can expand it's diet to a wide variety of foods. Right now your best food choice would be freeze dried blood worms mixed with broken pellets.
 
Unforunately, I am not off to a graet start...

I did not account for the level of filtration I had on my 75 gallon to be too strong for this young aro, but apparently it was. When my air-circulator and canister filter turned on this morning, I saw the aro getting bullied and pushed around by the current. I quickly unplugged all the filtration, but he is swimming funny to one side now and seems to have one pectoral fin curled up and almost all missing.

I have moved him to a solitary 20 gallon L hospital tank in hopes that he will make a recovery, but so far it isnt looking good. He periodically sinks to the bottom of the tank for a while, then returns to the surface for a while, repeat. I guess I should have known better but nothing more I can do now.

The 20 gallon is heated and has an air stone in it, nothing else, hoping the calm water and solitary confinement will help bring him around....
 
Nice aro and sorry to hear. I think he may be stressed from being shipped to the pet store and having to acclimate their water, and now acclimating to your water. Plus, the strong current probably didn't help matters any...but I understand it was an accident, just saying, it probably made him more stressed than he already was. Please let us know if he recovers, and if he doesn't, try and tell your LFS the story and maybe/hopefully they will refund you.
 
C L O W N K N I F E said:
Nice aro and sorry to hear. I think he may be stressed from being shipped to the pet store and having to acclimate their water, and now acclimating to your water. Plus, the strong current probably didn't help matters any...but I understand it was an accident, just saying, it probably made him more stressed than he already was. Please let us know if he recovers, and if he doesn't, try and tell your LFS the story and maybe/hopefully they will refund you.
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He was actually still in his original shipping bag when I purchased him from the LFS, never had a chance to acclimate to their water. I drip acclimated him with a 5 gallon bucket for 8hrs before having him in 75g, im almost positive it was the strong current that beat him up once it turned on in the morning (at night i only have two emporer 400's running), I saw the air circulator pulling him in towards it...
 
landmineyouth said:
He was actually still in his original shipping bag when I purchased him from the LFS, never had a chance to acclimate to their water. I drip acclimated him with a 5 gallon bucket for 8hrs before having him in 75g, im almost positive it was the strong current that beat him up once it turned on in the morning (at night i only have two emporer 400's running), I saw the air circulator pulling him in towards it...
Click to expand...

Oh...then ya, the current was probably the problem. They prefer slow moving water and will get stressed by the strong current :(

I'm sure he'll recover though, but if not...sorry :(
 
landmineyouth said:
^ Fingers crossed. He's just sort of curled up at the bottom of the hospital tank in a weird question-mark type shape, not moving a whole lot...
Click to expand...

Not good :(

Did you try adding some Stress Coat to the water?
 
hi rob.. not sure what the current status is.. but i hope your aro is and will be fine soon.. please have a read at this sticky.. should give you more than enough answers to most of the common questions you would have about aros..

http://www.monsterfishkeepers.com/f...9584-do-you-want-an-arowana-...then-read-this

good call you moved the aro to the 20 gallon.. the aro is considerably stressed so preferably keep the aro in a place where there is not too much of light.. dim.. diffused lighting is ok.. but enough aeration in the tank.. prob tiny guppy fry.. so if the aro is hungry can eat it.. try to avoid interfering too much for a while.. check on the aro prob once a day.. it should be fine.. time should make it feel better.. all the best.. cheers mate
 
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