What to feed an 8 inch or above Arowana of any type.
- Thread starter classic-chassis
- Start date
My comments are in red and bold
classic-chassis;2415280; said: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! (but so is your fishbut really this is downside for us in asia especially)
Some arowana will NOT eat them. Mine included. (eventually they will - gotta try harder)
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. (debatable ... as ur aro gets hungrier it WILL fight for pellets)
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.
Your aro chase and hurt itself it the process (i had a feeder catfish outgrow baby aro then competing for food!)
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 (you don't have to a farm. Can freeze them. Overhere and where you live these are available in packs in the freezer - does not need to be live)
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. (not entirely true, mines take frozen crickets and pellets and the rest)
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. (can buy frogs on the market or farms)
Be careful, if lizard (gecko) has eaten an insect that was sprayed with pestiside - it will not turn out good for your aro
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
Mines ate freeze dried krill before but ever since i fed it live blood worms, he will not eat the krill anymore, i am considering buying crickets..
im a firm believer of prawns in the shell stuffed with hikari aro pellets for larger aro
baby aro like my new RTG im feeding shrimp with no shell stuffed wiht pellets.
the really big jardinii i have will eat a whole prawn with shell no head sometimes stuffed with pellets too.
i find that when i fed insects - they take awhile to go bcak to shrimp cos they love it so much. I buy feeders and keep them in a quarantine tank for ages, feed them hikari aro sticks soaked in garlic guard to flush parasites out.,
baby aro like my new RTG im feeding shrimp with no shell stuffed wiht pellets.
the really big jardinii i have will eat a whole prawn with shell no head sometimes stuffed with pellets too.
i find that when i fed insects - they take awhile to go bcak to shrimp cos they love it so much. I buy feeders and keep them in a quarantine tank for ages, feed them hikari aro sticks soaked in garlic guard to flush parasites out.,
Thats the idea, make it a sticky that can change into a precise documented outline for food stuffs.ctoychik;2426301; said:
Use the qoute and chage it with more info.
henward;2427082; said:
I just found a farm that sells crickets (used to buy from retailer 1.5 buck per pack). ~5 bucks per KILO. I am set for life now
