So I Got An Arowana

Ok as the title states. What can I expect from it. How intelligent are they? How entertaining are they? What is a good diet. As of right now mine is eating my pbass that I just got from Bobby lol (suddenly brought back to a pbass in my payaras stomach). They are like 2 inches or so. What size food can an arowana get down at 7-8 inches.

Anyway looking for experiences from owners. Oh and what tank mates go good with them. I guessing they are semi aggressive?? And not balls out like my wolves??

Anyway thanks in advance.

I've kept lots of different fish with my aro's over the years.. Right now i have Geo's, sev's, catfish, and pleco's.. In the past i've kept rays, gar's, pbass, datnoids, ca/sa cichlids, big cats, and lots of different pleco's.. Just make sure the fish don't fit in it's mouth and you'll be fine..lol
As far as food goes try and get it off live as soon as you can, there's so many diseases feeders carry. My big black aro only eats tilapia fillets, but all my silvers would eat market shrimp, fish fillets, aro sticks, and almost any kind of frozen foods like bloodworms, beefheart, brine shrimp and so on..

One "BIG" Tip for ya....WEIGH YOUR LIDS DOWN AND COVER ALL WAYS OUT OF THE TANK !!!
Aro's like to jump and will smack your lids and if there's a way out they'll be on your floor..

Hope this helps a little.

lol yep just like hbluehunter said, leave no spots for them to jump out. bc they will find a way. in nature they jump offten after food. so its very normal for them. anything that can fit in there mouth is food. lol

what kind of aro?

Hunter- thanks for the info man much appreciated! I have my arowana in with my small cichlids. I have a feeling a couple will go missing too. But I'm kind of stuck cause there is no way in hell my dovii is going to let that fish hang out with them lol. Well see. I have the food sticks to feed it aswell as my homemade food and also a good supply of tilapia fillets scallops and shrimp.

Tanker- thanks for giving your input. It helps alot. Also man is that your Ray??? If so that is awesome!! What kind is it? Oh and I'm talking about your avatar. Lol.

Mopar- it's a nice silver one. Bobby sold his last black when i inquired.

Hey another quick question. Is drop eye preventable?

no i wish, the ray will be at least 2000 bucks, ya, was just talking to another member on here about how freshwater can be just as much money to keep than salt. all depends what ur keeping. ur arrow will grow fast just keep him well fed an he will be a monster in no time, mine really loved crickets. there are a few tricks to get them off live food. so if u have a problem geting him to eat pellots let us know i an i know hbluehunter have a few tricks up our selves to get them on it.
its my avatar as a reminder to keep worken for one lol

Alot has to do with the quality of the fish, also I heard dropping a ping pong ball in the water so it has something to look up at can help.

Addictedtofish wrote:Alot has to do with the quality of the fish, also I heard dropping a ping pong ball in the water so it has something to look up at can help.

yes i have heard this as well to help with drop eye. i also heard a mirror on top, never tried my self, but hey could help. ping pong ball sounds like a great idea

silvers grow fast, and are generally accepting of tankmates. a bit skittish and jumpy.

as far as the drop eye goes, just learn to accept it when it happens. i dont care what anybody says, in a tank there is no way to prevent or cure it. silvers are by far the most prone to getting DE as well.

dmopar74 wrote:silvers grow fast, and are generally accepting of tankmates. a bit skittish and jumpy.

as far as the drop eye goes, just learn to accept it when it happens. i dont care what anybody says, in a tank there is no way to prevent or cure it. silvers are by far the most prone to getting DE as well.

hey hey, yes as i have yet to really see anyone find a way to stop or prevent it. seems its just a matter of time s, unless u have a huge heated pond. hey dmopar u still got ur arrow. i remember when i got the p bass from u it was geting big. how big is he now

that guy i sold a long time ago, sorta wish i never did. ive got a jardini aro now but it is growing sooooo slow compared to a silvers growth. think alot of that has to due that i cant get it to eat anything but market shrimp.

dmopar74 wrote:that guy i sold a long time ago, sorta wish i never did. ive got a jardini aro now but it is growing sooooo slow compared to a silvers growth. think alot of that has to due that i cant get it to eat anything but market shrimp.

ya jar tend to more picky, mine only ate market shrimp as well. how big is ur arrow now. i miss the one i had

bout 6-7", got it at 3" and had it bout 7 months. i had a leichardti aro a while back that i lost to a major tank mishap, that was a cool ass fish.

oh hi friend ,
i sell the aros ,king kong parrots and spotted gar as tank mates,some people keep motoro with the aro.the regular fish buddies up north here are all in agreement to,

so they have been Guinea pigs so i can pass it on to others,i was thinking ide be meeting you this weekend ,woolfkeeper

i would rather tell a person no to a fish than sell them something that will get eaten by what they keep at home,

USMCtanker!!!! is that a dream pic or did you get some????

im down to 2 of the 4 to 5 inch aro from Thailand ,trying to get 6 10 to 12inchers this coming week,

in the this last month ive sold 15 total arowana,un real ,the local shops have them setting for months,

i guess im just cheap,,,,,,,,in a good way

Just out of curiousity about the arowanas. I had an idea for a archer fish tank that i thing would be cool for the arowana as well... Anyone ever thought about making a acrylic canopy out of some thin acrylic...

I figure it would be cool to have an inclosure above the tank you could see into and than you could fill it with house flies or moths and what not and you can watch you aros do there thing...

The original idea i had was for archers to be able to watch them shoot down bugs..
How cool would it to be able to see that.. lol

seattle transhiper wrote:oh hi friend ,
i sell the aros ,king kong parrots and spotted gar as tank mates,some people keep motoro with the aro.the regular fish buddies up north here are all in agreement to,

so they have been Guinea pigs so i can pass it on to others,i was thinking ide be meeting you this weekend ,woolfkeeper

i would rather tell a person no to a fish than sell them something that will get eaten by what they keep at home,

USMCtanker!!!! is that a dream pic or did you get some????

im down to 2 of the 4 to 5 inch aro from Thailand ,trying to get 6 10 to 12inchers this coming week,

in the this last month ive sold 15 total arowana,un real ,the local shops have them setting for months,

i guess im just cheap,,,,,,,,in a good way

thats a dream pic. lol one day ill have the money to get one, was called a dimond ray. guess its a morph of a leo. not 100% sure as off yet, still doing some research. all i know for sure is its prob gonna be a cpl thousand lol. but hey could u imagine if u had a pair breeding, man the pups would be beautiful. tell then ill just keep some more common rays an breed my way up lol.

Doza wrote:Just out of curiousity about the arowanas. I had an idea for a archer fish tank that i thing would be cool for the arowana as well... Anyone ever thought about making a acrylic canopy out of some thin acrylic...

I figure it would be cool to have an inclosure above the tank you could see into and than you could fill it with house flies or moths and what not and you can watch you aros do there thing...

The original idea i had was for archers to be able to watch them shoot down bugs..
How cool would it to be able to see that.. lol

do it. i had a setup like this. ill see if i have any pics. had a 100 gal an kept about 3/4 full, added some vines an branches. had arches an a silver arrow. feed crickets on branches an its really cool to watch them shot them, i was hoping the arrow would jump at some like i have seen in some nature shows but he just learned to follow archers an get to the food faster once they shot it. from what i heard archers do best in brackish water. i didnt bc i dont know if an arrow would be fine. non the less my archers did fine in just fresh. i know a guy that was selling a very rare varient of the archer fish, dont know if he still has some but ill check if u want. but even the normal archer fish are so cool to watch, an there fairly easy to find at stores. but my 2 cents. try it, i bet u will love it, plus who does that u know. i know if u do it ill wanna see some pics or vid. shoot ur maken me wanna do it again. i even tossed in a cpl tree frogs. but arrow did have a snack an that was the end of little frogs in there. but u could do some of those fully aquatic salamanders to, i nver tried that but have see lots latly at lfs. they real cool an prob would do great in a tank like that, also try an grow real plants out of the top.

Transhipper- it was with all intention to meet up with you this weekend, but as life does, I was sidetrack by more then my hobby. I'm also off next Friday. Don't fret friend I will make it to your store. Anywaord back on the black wolf? I know you said it's pricey but pm what the ticket may be.

I just may snag a gar from you. But there not the needle nose gar are they?

As dr as the drop eye goes like said above there's really no way to prevent or fix it.. I've been told wc silvers are less prone to it but I'm not sure I believe that.. To be honest that's why I saved for a year and searched for about that long to find my Black aro. For some reason they don't get DE very often, not like the silvers anyway.

Tanker, Can't wait for you to score a Leo, BD, or Hen so I can drool on your tank.. Lol

Since were talking about arowana's does anybody know if the golden cross back is illegal? The aquabid thing says it's from australia so it isn't an aiasian arowana. Anyway just curious.

So how many of your pbass was eaten by your arrow?

a golden cross back is an asian aro and is illegal

the only legal aro's in the us are-
black
silver
jardini
leichardti
african

any asian of any color or varient is illegal.

i just checked out those aro's on aquabid, those are simply jardini aros. its rather easy to make aro's look a certain color with the use of lighting, and background/substrate color.

Plus if you see people selling Asian Aro's on aquabid or on craigslist beware.. Fish and game like to do stings and catch people buying and selling these fish.. If it sounds to good to be true it probably is.

Just one of my pbass was eatin so far. Well see tommorow though. Lol. I may have to buy pbass of size next time around.

Or you could setup a 55gal. for a growout tank for the pbass and others to small for that tank setup.

True, I really should.

while small: Hikari pellets, FD bloodworms and brine.
While big: slices of beefheart, tilapia fillets.
Stay away from live worms and such; gut loaded crickets and mealworms are fine.
Keep top lid shut and any small crevices should be dealt with.
As for my aro: calm, playful, but very strong for a pet fish. Will always take foods from my fingers and stay around the area of the tank where I lounge and chill.
Make sure the water current is mild and has a proper flow pattern; my aro would act stressed before I changed this to accomodate it.

Your aro will lose some scales, don't worry...it grows back.
DE is expected among silver arowana's.
You Will need a big tank, later.
[list=1][*]

Thanks man. Very informative. I heard of gut loading feeders and such. How would I gut load crikets and meal worms? Is it the same just feed them the food sticks?

I use to raise crickets for my reptiles. Gut loading is where you feed good quality food to your crickets so your reptiles will be getting good quality crickets with right nutrition and such. Same thing for feeder fish.

Hmmmm....I'll have to look into that. I wonder what I could feed a cricket that would be good for my fish aswell.

Carrots, carrots and more carrots.

Really? That's funny I never guessed carrots. I remember going to aquarist wrold or something in white center and the dude had carrots in all the tanks. I wondered why. Fish eat carrots? Or is it a vitamin in the carrot.

protocl wrote:while small: Hikari pellets, FD bloodworms and brine.
While big: slices of beefheart, tilapia fillets.
Stay away from live worms and such; gut loaded crickets and mealworms are fine.
Keep top lid shut and any small crevices should be dealt with.
As for my aro: calm, playful, but very strong for a pet fish. Will always take foods from my fingers and stay around the area of the tank where I lounge and chill.
Make sure the water current is mild and has a proper flow pattern; my aro would act stressed before I changed this to accomodate it.

Your aro will lose some scales, don't worry...it grows back.
DE is expected among silver arowana's.
You Will need a big tank, later.
[list=1][*]

curious why u say no live worms an such, i have feed my arrow millions with out a problem, i feed most my fish worms on occasion. i know to be careful of bait worms, makeing sure there isnt anything added, but some worms such as california black worms an good sources for earthworms are loaded with goodys for fish an a huge part of alot of fish diet

[quote="USMCtanker"]

protocl wrote:while small: Hikari pellets, FD bloodworms and brine.
While big: slices of beefheart, tilapia fillets.
Stay away from live worms and such; gut loaded crickets and mealworms are fine.
Keep top lid shut and any small crevices should be dealt with.
As for my aro: calm, playful, but very strong for a pet fish. Will always take foods from my fingers and stay around the area of the tank where I lounge and chill.
Make sure the water current is mild and has a proper flow pattern; my aro would act stressed before I changed this to accomodate it.

Your aro will lose some scales, don't worry...it grows back.
DE is expected among silver arowana's.
You Will need a big tank, later.

curious why u say no live worms an such, i have feed my arrow millions with out a problem, i feed most my fish worms on occasion. i know to be careful of bait worms, makeing sure there isnt anything added, but some worms such as california black worms an good sources for earthworms are loaded with goodys for fish an a huge part of alot of fish diet

its more so a precaution, rather than a total 'do not.'
I mentioned this, because im not sure on how his setups are and what types of tanks he has to house a silver arowana when it gets big and sick. so, if he has a big tank to hospitalize it, my suggestion can be ignored.
I usually stay away from live foods for my fishes, in general. even if i fed my arowana with live BW, she probably would not see them lol. before i had to finger feed my aro the frozen bloodworms. plus, most fishes will become addicted to a specific type of foods, ignoring all others.

[quote="protocl"]

USMCtanker wrote:

protocl wrote:while small: Hikari pellets, FD bloodworms and brine.
While big: slices of beefheart, tilapia fillets.
Stay away from live worms and such; gut loaded crickets and mealworms are fine.
Keep top lid shut and any small crevices should be dealt with.
As for my aro: calm, playful, but very strong for a pet fish. Will always take foods from my fingers and stay around the area of the tank where I lounge and chill.
Make sure the water current is mild and has a proper flow pattern; my aro would act stressed before I changed this to accomodate it.

Your aro will lose some scales, don't worry...it grows back.
DE is expected among silver arowana's.
You Will need a big tank, later.

curious why u say no live worms an such, i have feed my arrow millions with out a problem, i feed most my fish worms on occasion. i know to be careful of bait worms, makeing sure there isnt anything added, but some worms such as california black worms an good sources for earthworms are loaded with goodys for fish an a huge part of alot of fish diet

its more so a precaution, rather than a total 'do not.'
I mentioned this, because im not sure on how his setups are and what types of tanks he has to house a silver arowana when it gets big and sick. so, if he has a big tank to hospitalize it, my suggestion can be ignored.
I usually stay away from live foods for my fishes, in general. even if i fed my arowana with live BW, she probably would not see them lol. before i had to finger feed my aro the frozen bloodworms. plus, most fishes will become addicted to a specific type of foods, ignoring all others.

ok lol was just woundering if u know something i dont, but if ur worried about what ur worried about, i would say that the crikets an mealworms are just as risky. really any food besides pre made fish foods must be look at carefully. for me a good diet helps a fish not get sick, along with a higher temp no lower than 80 no higher than 86 for arrows an most tankmates kept with them. my arrows never had a problem an at times i even feed feeder mice. just need good filtration bc the poop is a real mess lol. most people i know that keep arrows would say a good varitey diet is needed to have a healthy fish. but when useing any live foods, they should come from a clean reliable source an still inspected an fully rinced off before hand.
just my 2 cents. but live feeder fish from pets stores should be put in a quarantine tank before being feed. as thats how most get there fish sick, is a bad batch of feeders. but ur 100% right, dont wanna get a fish sick, but i think a good diet an makeing sure its good clean food for its diet is better as this will help its health. thats what most arrow farmers in east say anyway lol. an worked for me.

i loose money but its just a matter of a few pennies ,my feeder goldfish here are taken care of as they were going to be pets,

they get feed trout chow ,if they look rough when i get them in i use erythromycin on them ,that's the spendy part ,and i like to feed them metronidazole flakes and feed them to my fish here ,kinda like gut loading a cricket,

i had a red belly for 13 years ,i know what its like to get a bad batch of feeders

sure glad i sell the arowana fast here ,the feeder mouse thing sounds nasty

i had a co-worker who feeds his jardini, nothing but feeders. just dumps 20 or 30 of them with the jardini. lol

im sure, there are keepers who do not want to spend the extra cash on foods, such as beefheart, tilapia etc...the good thing is, i eat beefheart, tilapia, chicken heart! so, i just cut a few pieces, prepare them and then feed to the fishes. lol

I used to feed my 1st Jardini feeders for along time when i first got it until i learned about all the bad disease and stuff they carry.. As far as the worms go i learned from a member on MFK can't remember who it was right now about gut loading worms.. Make a bowl of oatmeal, cool it down and instant worm chow..lol Better than feeding worms full of dirt..

seattle transhiper wrote:i loose money but its just a matter of a few pennies ,my feeder goldfish here are taken care of as they were going to be pets,

they get feed trout chow ,if they look rough when i get them in i use erythromycin on them ,that's the spendy part ,and i like to feed them metronidazole flakes and feed them to my fish here ,kinda like gut loading a cricket,

i had a red belly for 13 years ,i know what its like to get a bad batch of feeders

sure glad i sell the arowana fast here ,the feeder mouse thing sounds nasty

yes i can say the 2 times i got feeders from u i never had a problem an they all looked 100% keep up the good work lol. saves me time lol keep good care of ur stuff an even ur little feeders may cost u more but it will score point with customers in no time, like my self. so in time it will make money. bc as all those arrows u sell, when they get bigger im sure some of the customers will come back for feeders.
lol the mouse was nasty but cool to watch to. as full grow arrow in the wild eat all kinda stuff from small birds to small rodents.

hbluehunter wrote:I used to feed my 1st Jardini feeders for along time when i first got it until i learned about all the bad disease and stuff they carry.. As far as the worms go i learned from a member on MFK can't remember who it was right now about gut loading worms.. Make a bowl of oatmeal, cool it down and instant worm chow..lol Better than feeding worms full of dirt..

lol yep yep, i heard it there to, dont remember who. but i do this offten. i was reading a book the other day on stringray breeders (freashwater stingray by aqualog) an they add stuff like calcium powders an things dusted on food as well. kida like u do for reptiles

Yea i did it with a couple picky wild caught marbles i had imported.. Finally after months of gut loading Wally World worms they took to the tilapia fillets.. Thank god, it got expensive buying 3-4 containers of worms a week..

hbluehunter wrote:Yea i did it with a couple picky wild caught marbles i had imported.. Finally after months of gut loading Wally World worms they took to the tilapia fillets.. Thank god, it got expensive buying 3-4 containers of worms a week..

lol ya, im looking at starting a 20 gal to breed blackworms for pups. gonna get a huge box of earthworms an get some blue bins an try to breed them my self. for my juvil rays. then ill set up a 55 or maybe my 100gal in garage an breed some tilapia for the larger rays. this is the plan lol. also to gut load all these. have read alot that geting rays to breed has alot to do with stable water conditions an most of all a good diet an always being full. lol if there looken for food there not thinken about u know what. so if there fat an happy all they can think about it doing the nasty lol. an i want them to do the nasty. turn on some berry white put a sheet over the tank an turn in the moon light lol. but i guess having a good variety diet is a big part to helping rays to breed. tried feeding them a sand crab. lol they didnt know what to think of it. didnt take tho. so my 2 gars loved the sand crab tho.

Couple pics of my arowana

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Silver or black?

It may be wild caught.

silver

I believe it's a silver. Although I know Bobby gets tons of wild caught fish like the payara I'm not sure about this one. It has a yellow tint to the fins I haven't seen before around the edges. Anyway what would make you think wild caught?

Dark in body colour, bu I think you have a black, not silver.
Wow, yellow edged fins? Never seen this. Mine has red.

beautiful fish .looks like you have a great group in your tank now