Lame aro :(

[Steve_Henderson]

The aro's been really skittish lately. I have about 1/3 of the tank covered with a blanket (8x2x2) so he can hide if he wants, but lately he hasn't been coming out at all. He'll peek past the blanket and then turn around and hide. At night I have a moon light on and if I sit in the dark he'll come out and swim to the other end of the tank, until he realizes I'm there to which he'll quickly swim back behind the blanket. The water should be good. Did a lot of water changes last week to make the water near perfect, and now only the filter needs to be cleaned(barely flowing now ). I have a 55g sump I'll be hooking up in a week or two but I don't understand why he's being like this! I've had him for a good 4-5 years. Also decided to buy some krill(the aro, clown knife, shovel nose cat, etc. are all feed arowana sticks), and no one would come out to eat the krill! Even tied a krill to a fishing line and suspended it near the surface for the aro and he just swam past it... Kinda just frustrated with him. Saw a jardini in the LFS today for $100 (waaaay expensive) and thought about maybe ordering one and raising it to be more personable. Any ideas on what to do with my aro?

 

[nitrofish1]

id give it more time.

 

[Bderick67]

The aro's been really skittish lately. I have about 1/3 of the tank covered with a blanket (8x2x2) so he can hide if he wants, but lately he hasn't been coming out at all. He'll peek past the blanket and then turn around and hide. At night I have a moon light on and if I sit in the dark he'll come out and swim to the other end of the tank, until he realizes I'm there to which he'll quickly swim back behind the blanket. The water should be good. Did a lot of water changes last week to make the water near perfect, and now only the filter needs to be cleaned(barely flowing now ). I have a 55g sump I'll be hooking up in a week or two but I don't understand why he's being like this! I've had him for a good 4-5 years. Also decided to buy some krill(the aro, clown knife, shovel nose cat, etc. are all feed arowana sticks), and no one would come out to eat the krill! Even tied a krill to a fishing line and suspended it near the surface for the aro and he just swam past it... Kinda just frustrated with him. Saw a jardini in the LFS today for $100 (waaaay expensive) and thought about maybe ordering one and raising it to be more personable. Any ideas on what to do with my aro?

id give it more time.

So what are ya thinking maybe another year or two? nice job on reading his post.



Steve you state that you water params "should be good" yet your filter has low flow and you have a heavy stocklist. Do you even test your water params? IMO if this is new behavior from your aro then something is wrong with your tanks water. Or another possiblity is that your aro has injured itself by slamming into top glass or the side of the tank.

 

[channarox]

check your water params.
or maybe you spooked him somehow.
when my any of my aros got spooked by me they'd become skittish for a very long tiem but eventually become more tame.

 

[ctoychik]

The aro's been really skittish lately. I have about 1/3 of the tank covered with a blanket (8x2x2) so he can hide if he wants, but lately he hasn't been coming out at all. He'll peek past the blanket and then turn around and hide. At night I have a moon light on and if I sit in the dark he'll come out and swim to the other end of the tank, until he realizes I'm there to which he'll quickly swim back behind the blanket. The water should be good. Did a lot of water changes last week to make the water near perfect, and now only the filter needs to be cleaned(barely flowing now ). I have a 55g sump I'll be hooking up in a week or two but I don't understand why he's being like this! I've had him for a good 4-5 years. Also decided to buy some krill(the aro, clown knife, shovel nose cat, etc. are all feed arowana sticks), and no one would come out to eat the krill! Even tied a krill to a fishing line and suspended it near the surface for the aro and he just swam past it... Kinda just frustrated with him. Saw a jardini in the LFS today for $100 (waaaay expensive) and thought about maybe ordering one and raising it to be more personable. Any ideas on what to do with my aro?

Skittish for 4-5 years?!!!! You must have a full grown aro which is completely unaccustomed to people .... yikes!

I am not sure you can even do anything if that much time did not cure it or brought it closer to you. Perhaps, you have overindulged it with its privacy lol ...

 

[Steve_Henderson]

He's been friendly before. He used to come up to the glass and swim against it when I would sit down near the tank(Hungry!). Just the past month or two he's been like this. The reason I'm kinda lazy with the water params is I did a bunch of testing the past two weeks and keep it very good by doing water changes every day to every other day(It's been like 4 days since the last test). Even with the water params very good he still acted the same. The filters getting cleaned and probably a water change in an hour or two.

 

[Steve_Henderson]

Just started doing a water change and cleaned the filter. Found that draining the 240 via using one of mom's pond pumps take about 4 minutes flat to drain it 50%. Did a water test too and everything came back fine, just low alkalinity.

 

[ThrobbingKneeRodney]

possibly location of the tank??? That'd be a big tank to move... Wheres it located?

 

[MDK500]

Do any of the tank-mates scare/frighten him?

 

[Steve_Henderson]

He's housed with a clown knife, shovel nose cat, two plecos and another catfish. All of them are pretty chill, the shovel nose cat goes a little crazy when he feeds but aside from that, all of them are really mellow. The back and one side of the tank is against the wall, and good two and a half feet is covered by a blanket. Most of the fish hang out behind the blanket with him most of the day. The tank itself is probably 5-6 feet from a doorway, but only I really walk through it.