Repashy and African Arowana

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Mine didn't make it. I tried daphnia, golden pearls, decapsulated brine shrimp eggs. I don't know what I did wrong beside going to work and couldn't keep putting food in the tank all day long. He was like 3" long and i was really bumed because I was really excited about him. I'm still going to try again though. If your idea works let me know.
 
Aquanero said:
Mine didn't make it. I tried daphnia, golden pearls, decapsulated brine shrimp eggs. I don't know what I did wrong beside going to work and couldn't keep putting food in the tank all day long. He was like 3" long and i was really bumed because I was really excited about him. I'm still going to try again though. If your idea works let me know.
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Aww that's a bummer Tom. I haven't gotten it yet, but Jay pretty much talked me into getting one lol. Doing my research on them now. If the Repashy works I'll definitely let you know.
 
I fed mine bloodworms only until he was about a 10". The thinnest bloodworms I could find were sally's bloodworms by san fransico bay brand, and were taken much easier and I had no problems on my first ever attempt.
 
Afaros are not surface feeders. Mine has never taken anything from the surface. He always waits for it to sink to mid-level. Afaros are filter-feeders. Anything in the water column and on the bottom is investigated for being a possible food item.

Here's a quick care reference I posted a while back on rearing juvie afaros:

The african arowana, Heterotis niloticus, is extremely time-consuming to keep alive as juvies in aquaria. They basically have to have access to food constantly until they reach about 8" and their bodies start holding reserve fat. These are filter feeding fish that can reach 3ft in length. I raised them on dense culture crumbles, frozen bloodworms, mysis shrimp, brine shrimp plus, cyclop-eeze, mosquito larvae, and daphnia. Leftover foods made up the "constant" part of their feeding regimen.
I kept mine going by keeping them in bare tanks with sponge filters. The sponge filters were beneficial in that they attracted food to their surface which the aros grazed on between feedings. Water chemistry is hard and alkaline with rift lake salts added to the tank. Water changes are every other day and sponge filters each are rinsed off on alternating days to keep spoiled food off the aros grazing areas. The tank receives direct sunlight to 1 side for an hour or 2 a day. The water is pretty green (to match their native waters).
Young can be kept together for only a short time, as very small fry, before they become intolerant of each other and begin fighting. The stronger one will harass the smaller ones until there is only one aro left in the tank. As sub-adults, they become tolerant of conspecifics again. I have other small growout species in with my young aros and they've never bothered them. These fish are active in all areas of the tank and are always on the move.
This is an awesome species if you can resolve yourself to being extremely busy on their maintenance for the first 6-8 months or so.
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It doesn't matter how often you feed them during the day. These young afaros must have constant access to food or they'll never properly develop a sustaining fat layer. I've even kept a night light on my juvies tanks to help them find food throughout the night. So long as the sponge filters were properly maintained, their night feedings remained safe for them. They're not finicky about what they'll eat so, any combination of high protein foods, whether live, fresh, thawed, prepared, etc. will work fine as long as they have constant access to it.

afaro2.jpg

afaro2.jpg
 
i cared for several colonie of heterotrophic sun corals (Tubastrea sp.) and other than hand feeding them via pipette with mysis shrimp every couple of days, we had a 5 gallon bucket above the tank that had a tube put through a hole near the bottom of the side of the bucket which dripped into the tank throughout the day (the tube had a knot tied in it or had a clip to restrict flow to a drip rather than a full flow). In the bucket we had filled the bucket half with salt water, with a litre of newly hatched brine shrimp and a 2"x2"x0.5" chunk of cyclopeeze along with an airline tube attached to an air pump to keep all the food suspended in the water so it could drip out via the drip tube.

So everyday from 9 am ish to early evening, food would be available to the corals so they could free feed on their own. They would also eat the food that was fed to the fish in the tank also.

Wouldn't this work for african arowanas? just switch out the salt water for fresh and add whatever food you wanted, chopped bloodworms, fish roe, anything you'd want. I'm not familiar with african arowanas at all, but you'd be able to adjust drip flow however is needed for the fish, and it lets the arowana have food while you're away at work or whatever.

That along with the sponge filters that Oddball was talking about, and I think it'd work.

i hope you can understand my terrible description of the bucket haha
 
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