Secure your Arowana lids!

[islandguy11]

As you can see in this new video from Joey King of DIY he unfortunately lost one of his Asian Arowanas due to jumping out of the tank (which he caught on CCTV about 4:35). Clearly polycarbonate without weights or being tied down somehow just isn't strong enough.

 

[flukeone]

Saw that this morning. Made me paranoid

 

[Canoeist]

 

[islandguy11]

Saw that this morning. Made me paranoid

These fish have a way of doing that lol.

 

[Akeno071]

It's really sad that once again Joey has written this off as a "freak accident" and decided to make no changes.
Theres nothing wrong with having experienced a loss like that to then make some changes to adapt for it.

 

[islandguy11]

It's really sad that once again Joey has written this off as a "freak accident" and decided to make no changes.
Theres nothing wrong with having experienced a loss like that to then make some changes to adapt for it.

Agreed; in fact every time I saw those lids in videos I wondered if he secured them better when off-camera, apparently not and as you say he didn't indicate he was going to change anything.

 

[vtnamezeboi]

My silver jumped out twice. I secured my lid by putting a heavy stone on it. Next thing it jumped so hard and knocked itself out and died.

 

[flukeone]

Here's my diy solution to secure my lids. plastic hooks, bungee cord and some hot glue

 

[islandguy11]

My silver jumped out twice. I secured my lid by putting a heavy stone on it. Next thing it jumped so hard and knocked itself out and died.

Lid hardness is definitely something to consider, which is why I like using this plastic screening, it's more forgiving in case of impact.



That said, if one's Arowana is jumping multiple times or frequently we should be asking ourselves why (tank too small? conflict with other fish? bad water parameters? etc.) and then try our best to rectify the situation.

In Joey's situation it was definitely conflict with other fish that caused the jumping, though it's not clear in the video if it was from another Arowana or that Giant Gourami might have been involved if you look closely at the video.

flukeone I think your new latching method looks pretty good, esp. for a younger Arowana. At around 20"+ (like Joey's fish) I'm not sure though if they could stretch that bunjee enough to force open the lid and get out. Probably not but I'd be inclined to use something that didn't stretch.

 

[Hendre]

That's quite the hefty lid! Guess you really must be careful with these guys..