Pellets for silver arowana? Really?

[Silverroo]

My personal advice keep away from pellets. Me and my friend both got our arowanas at 4 inches 8 months ago. Interestingly his aro only ate pellets. Rejected all the other foods.He fed it with hikari carnivore pellets.
Another good friend of mine is a local fish shop owner. He is my next door neighbour too.Every day, after closing his store,he would bring all the culls to me for free. Yeah culls from lfs. It mostly had iridescent sharks and goldfish. But also some mollies,zebras,angels,guppies..whatever you can imagine from lfs.They were the staple diet for my Arowana. There are times when he gave me fishes with white spot disease and ich... By the time I realised the feeders had ich, they were in my aros mouth already. So too late to act.
As a supplement I also breed convicts for my silver arowana.He also eats okiko platinum and humpy head pellets that escaped the flowerhorn side of the tank. Plus common house geckos, cockroaches whenever I find em.
My friends silver arowana died a couple of days ago from swim bladder infection. It was like 13-14 inches.
On the other hand, look at mine. Around 20 inches in 7-8 months, no drop eye

 

[Silverroo]

The only thing I really keep up with is good water conditions. I daily siphon all the poo at the bottom and top up the water level.currently he is in a 4*2 tank.Gonna upgrade to 8*3 tank

 

[FreshyFresh]

IMO if the fish will eat pellet food, it's going to get a better quality and balanced nutrition from them over eating random feeder fish. No chance of introducing parasites or disease with pellets either. They key is using a quality pellet. Lots of junk ones out there where the first 3-4 ingredients are grains and fillers.

 

[Silverroo]

I am also going to feed just market prawns for the next 2 months. Will update after that.

 

[Silverroo]

IMO if the fish will eat pellet food, it's going to get a better quality and balanced nutrition from them over eating random feeder fish. No chance of introducing parasites or disease with pellets either. They key is using a quality pellet. Lots of junk ones out there where the first 3-4 ingredients are grains and fillers.

How would you say that? A GOOD Nutrition contributes to healthy growth right? If so feeder staple>pellet staple. Also with feeders,don't just feed goldfish.

 

[FreshyFresh]

Pellets with a great ingredient list are very nutrition dense per the volume you dump into the tank. It's all being used. Where with feeders, most of the feeder fish is going to get pooped out.

 

[tcav88]

24” no drop eye always on pellets and tilapia hasn’t touched a feeder

 

[justarn]

I'm yet to see a silver never get drop eye, the albinos sometimes don't get it tho I've heard.
24" and 20" is good going but suspect both will have it before 30"...
Good luck.

 

[tcav88]

I'm yet to see a silver never get drop eye, the albinos sometimes don't get it tho I've heard.
24" and 20" is good going but suspect both will have it before 30"...
Good luck.

agreed, even in the wild they get it...I just wanted to show the op that pellets don’t kill arowana or promote drop eye or swim bladder issues. I run drips on my tanks as well and this guy is wild caught from Columbia via Jeff Rapps

 

[Serpentine]

I second that nutritional value truly depends on the quality of the pellets. New Life Spectrum makes some great ones in their Float line which come in all different sizes. I still occasionally feed Hikari Carnisticks but it's more like a treat. Think Twinkies, but somewhat better for him.

Pellets and sticks aren't all I feed, either. They just cover any nutritional gaps I may be leaving and make sure he gets everything he needs. Live feeder crickets, nightcrawlers, freeze-dried or frozen / thawed krill and plankton are offered too. When he gets bigger market shrimp will be on the menu as well.

I will also (sheepishly) admit that the little nut loves cichlid flakes. I put them in for the other fish but he hoovers up as many as he can. Weirdo. So far so good on the drop eye, but the dude is only 7 inches so....