Most people say
hikari pellets / any pellets / sticks.
Benefits:
All the nutritional value you fish needs packed into a tiny
pellet.
Easy to use, just throw them in the tank.
Down sides:
Expensive!
Some arowana will NOT eat them. Mine included.
Greedy tank mates will eat them before the arowana does, so its very difficult to train your fish to eat them if you keep tank mates.
Live feeders:
Benefits:
Watching your aro hunt, keeping it natural.
Downsides:
You need to quarantine and treat them for a long time
to safe guard against parasites, and you need to feed them well for them to be of any nutritional benefit.
Market shrimp:
Benefits:
Easy to buy, you can stuff pellets in to the MS if your aro will not take pellets and they help with coloration.
Downsides:
Possibility of chemicals being in the shrimps which are meant to be cooked out before consumption.
Messy water.
Not de-shelling can kill your aro, especially the tails.
Fresh water goast prawns:
Benefits:
None in my opinion, except for cleaning up the left overs of feeding time.
your arow will ocasionally pick them off.
Downsides:
Once your fish gets to a certain size it can't catch them.
Super worms:
Benefits:
Aros love them as they do with most live food.
Easy to keep and to feed to you fish.
Downsides:
Fatty, which could be as benefit but too much and I read they will contribute to the fatty skin behind the eye which will induce DE in any
species.
Not sure of other nutritional values but another poster said he stuffed their guts with pellets so messy if you go down this road.
Arows will get addicted to them and refuse other food.
Crickets:
Benefits:
Aros love them as they do with most live food. If you feed your crickets with hikari pellets the fish is getting all the nutritional value of the pellets by proxy.
Downside:
You need to build a farm for them if youre going to feed them on fish food, this is hard work to maintain if you live in an area where they have a lot of
natural predators.
Ants are also a pain, Ive had to build a moat around my cricket farm to stop them.
Arows will get addicted to them and refuse other food.
Other insects:
Benefits:
As above.
Downside:
As above.
Small frogs / lizards.
Benefits:
Aros love them as they do with most live food. Watching them eat.
Downsides:
Be careful your aro is big enough to handle the bones. I read on this forum about geko skulls getting stuck in the guts and killing fish.
Messy and smelly to keep. Nutritional value will be low unless theyre feed well first.
Freeze dried products:
Benefits:
Easy to buy, keep and feed to your fish.
Downsides:
The only thing I can think of is the same problem of de-shelling shrimp and Im not sure of the nutritional value of any food thats been zapped into a frozen state.
Conclusion:
A good mixture of all the above would be the perfect diet for an arowana. Obviously a lot depends on where you live regarding accessibility and price.
If you can manage to mix 2 or 3 of the above items and rotate or even do mixed feeds ( mine at the moment does 5 or 6 SW followed by 5 or 6 crickets), it'll have a good diet.
Mine is growing at a super fast rater becauseI mix its food.
What you do not want to do is feed the same thing over and over, it is unhealthy for your fish and it will not grow properly. It will only eat a sufficient amount of food for sustenance.
Disclaimer:
I am a nube to Keeping aro, but i have learned most of what I know from this forum and doing a little reading of other sources. so if some wants to make this a sticky and add to it please do.
Asking questions is the path to learning anything, and questions should never be shunned or ridiculed (as some of my questions have been in other sections of this site.) With out the ability to question we would still be living in caves.
But the same question keeps coming up over and over again and is receives the same answers.
Cheers
Nathan
hikari pellets / any pellets / sticks.
Benefits:
All the nutritional value you fish needs packed into a tiny
pellet.
Easy to use, just throw them in the tank.
Down sides:
Expensive!
Some arowana will NOT eat them. Mine included.
Greedy tank mates will eat them before the arowana does, so its very difficult to train your fish to eat them if you keep tank mates.
Live feeders:
Benefits:
Watching your aro hunt, keeping it natural.
Downsides:
You need to quarantine and treat them for a long time
to safe guard against parasites, and you need to feed them well for them to be of any nutritional benefit.
Market shrimp:
Benefits:
Easy to buy, you can stuff pellets in to the MS if your aro will not take pellets and they help with coloration.
Downsides:
Possibility of chemicals being in the shrimps which are meant to be cooked out before consumption.
Messy water.
Not de-shelling can kill your aro, especially the tails.
Fresh water goast prawns:
Benefits:
None in my opinion, except for cleaning up the left overs of feeding time.
your arow will ocasionally pick them off.
Downsides:
Once your fish gets to a certain size it can't catch them.
Super worms:
Benefits:
Aros love them as they do with most live food.
Easy to keep and to feed to you fish.
Downsides:
Fatty, which could be as benefit but too much and I read they will contribute to the fatty skin behind the eye which will induce DE in any
species.
Not sure of other nutritional values but another poster said he stuffed their guts with pellets so messy if you go down this road.
Arows will get addicted to them and refuse other food.
Crickets:
Benefits:
Aros love them as they do with most live food. If you feed your crickets with hikari pellets the fish is getting all the nutritional value of the pellets by proxy.
Downside:
You need to build a farm for them if youre going to feed them on fish food, this is hard work to maintain if you live in an area where they have a lot of
natural predators.
Ants are also a pain, Ive had to build a moat around my cricket farm to stop them.
Arows will get addicted to them and refuse other food.
Other insects:
Benefits:
As above.
Downside:
As above.
Small frogs / lizards.
Benefits:
Aros love them as they do with most live food. Watching them eat.
Downsides:
Be careful your aro is big enough to handle the bones. I read on this forum about geko skulls getting stuck in the guts and killing fish.
Messy and smelly to keep. Nutritional value will be low unless theyre feed well first.
Freeze dried products:
Benefits:
Easy to buy, keep and feed to your fish.
Downsides:
The only thing I can think of is the same problem of de-shelling shrimp and Im not sure of the nutritional value of any food thats been zapped into a frozen state.
Conclusion:
A good mixture of all the above would be the perfect diet for an arowana. Obviously a lot depends on where you live regarding accessibility and price.
If you can manage to mix 2 or 3 of the above items and rotate or even do mixed feeds ( mine at the moment does 5 or 6 SW followed by 5 or 6 crickets), it'll have a good diet.
Mine is growing at a super fast rater becauseI mix its food.
What you do not want to do is feed the same thing over and over, it is unhealthy for your fish and it will not grow properly. It will only eat a sufficient amount of food for sustenance.
Disclaimer:
I am a nube to Keeping aro, but i have learned most of what I know from this forum and doing a little reading of other sources. so if some wants to make this a sticky and add to it please do.
Asking questions is the path to learning anything, and questions should never be shunned or ridiculed (as some of my questions have been in other sections of this site.) With out the ability to question we would still be living in caves.
But the same question keeps coming up over and over again and is receives the same answers.
Cheers
Nathan
