looking for arowana breeding info

[johnptc]

Hi All,
I have only recently discovered this site, heaps of good info guys and am still working through all the forums.

I have no experience with this specifically but have spent a few years in labs/field working in conservation genetics with relation to endangered fish along the following lines. But if you are interested in sexing an Arowana by using DNA you may wish to read this journal article:

Aquaculture Reasearch Volume 34 Issue 11 Page 951Issue 11 - 957 - September 2003. A strain-specific and a sex-associated STS marker for Asian arowana (Scleropages formosus, Osteoglossidae) G H Yue, D Ong, C C Wong, L C Lim, L Orban (2003).

This has about an 82% efficiency rate in sexing in Greens. I have not read this article in full but if you are serious about it an experienced lab may be able to use this info to design primers for PCR for silvers etc. they would hopefully be not to far apart. perhaps the researchers have done more work in this area since 2003 but not yet published and it might be worth talking to them. You never know you may be able to post them a frozen blood sample in anticoagulant.

Another interesting site with regard to Arowanas is http://www.arowanaclub.com/ a Singapour based group (mainly about Asian Aros but has a little bit about breeding and commercial pond setups).
Good luck.

thanks and welcome.... outstanding first post !!!!!!!!!!

 

[johnptc]

article abstract

A sex-associated amplified fragment length polymorphism and a strain-specific random amplified polymorphic DNA marker were identified from Asian arowana (dragonfish; Scleropages formosus Müller & Schlegel) by screening pooled genomic DNA samples from three different strains as well as males and females respectively. Both markers were cloned, sequenced and successfully converted into sequence-tagged-site (STS) markers. The strain-specific STS marker could be applied to differentiate the Indonesian golden strain of Asian arowana from the green and blood-red strains before the stage when colours become identifiable. Individuals from the green strain could be sexed with an efficiency of 82.7% using the sex-associated STS marker. Thus, populations with preferred sex ratios can be formed without the need of rearing a large number of fish

 

[Miguel]

How's it going John, with the blacks?

 

[Bstinga]

Thanks John.

Also you may wish to have a look at the Arowana Gender Index calculator on this Qian Hu website http://www.qianhu.com/ then select "Arowana Gender" from the "News Room" list on left of page. It seems to be morphologicaly based; you put in your Arowana length and girth details as shown in the pretty picture and it calculates within 70% margin of error if its a boy or girl (?!) . These guys seem to be quite progressive in the field also working with a lab and polytech in Arowana genetics/sexing. This calculator is alot easier than DNA and it's free! Again, I am not sure if you can carry this over to other Arowana Sp. i.e. Silver/black as you are primarily interested in USA.

Below quoted from website:

"In a collaboration R&D effort between Qian Hu and Mr Alex Chang of Ngee Ann Polytechnic, a novel approach of sex determination of the brooders using the Arowana Gender Index (AGI) was developed. Now commercial ornamental fish breeders can use this information to better determine the model ratio of the two genders to achieve the highest number of juvenile Arowana. This method offers a cheaper, simpler and efficient alternative to the traditional expensive DNA studies.

The method uses the differences in the relationship among the linear measures of the male and female adult asian arowana. The method yields high percentage accuracy (70%) and the index will greatly enhance the productivity of arowana breeders. This index can be used on Arowana fishes that are one year old and above. As the index uses data from healthy and non-deformed fishes, the accuracy of the index is only applicable to normal, healthy fish."
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[DeLgAdO]

Males are extremely territorial when it come to breeding period. Thus if you got too many males in there wouldn't it be world war 3?

My female was very aggressive towards my other fish the two years she layed eggs, both years fell around november. Im expecting eggs again in november.

additonal info- the female stops eating 1-2 months before she lays.

wait which aro are we talking about here? this is drifting left and right

 

[DeLgAdO]

You could always snip off a piece of fin/barbel and send it for DNA testing..

you might have a hard time finding anyone who has the equipment and know how here in the US. hmmmmmm.....that gives me an idea