Who Knows about silver Arowanas

audio77

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Jan 19, 2003
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just got my first arowana last night:D :D

its a 5" silver, very cool guy, (I'll just guess its a guy?!) woke up this morning and his front two fins were BLACK. yesterday they were clear. and he had a little darkness down his back, and down the tip of his fin that runs down his belly. weird?! i called my roomate in to look, and make sure i wasnt seeing things. went in the other room, got ready for work came back and he was silver again?!!!:confused: <---confused smiley!! weird huh.

do i have a rare breed of color changing arowana? hehe.

also, has anyone seen an aro with a black spot behind his gill. about one scale size black spot. its on both sides. like i said i've never had one before and didnt think twice about it, but looking at pix, i havent seen it on any other silver aro.
 
what size tank do you have?

about the color changing = I've heads most fish change colors slightly due to their mood
 
its a 5 gal eclipse set up

J/k, its a 180. it was kinda funny, cause i wasnt sure if i was going to get a black arowana or a silver. the LFS wasnt sure he could get a black, and he had a nice looking silver that was already eating pellets, so i bought the silver. went to bed, woke up and had a black one.?!
 
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Silvers have a black spot fringed with red while small at birth and keep it to about 4-5" it looks like an eye so in a school its hard for some preditor to single out a fish.Your feeding rainbow trout pellets right.Also more arro;s are lost to jumping if you can shove your thumb in a hole plug it up they will swim up the out flow on a power filter and shoot out the vent hole on the filter.Also a 5" arro might be VERY uncomfotable in a tank that large by himself. Float some plastic or live plants for some cover also a floating piece of driftwood with lots of branches would make him feel more at home right now.:D
BTW I'm bringing home silver babys 4 still have egg sacks (so cute)at 10 each I cant complane.Also I'm set up with live glass worms all summer so feeding babys is not that hard.I guess if you bring them home and aclimate them to your tap water with the egg yolk still there it will adapt better long term.
 
actually, the pellets they were feeding them was a sinking pellet. i didnt buy them. ive heard of people feeding them trout pellets. where would i get those. i have seen hikari floating sticks that have an aro on the bag.?! i brought home 10 feeder guppies, freeze dried blood worms, and freeze dried baby shrimp. i also have some flake food(big pringle looking chips, not sure if he'll eat them or not.) i figured i'd get a variety of things. but i'm looking for a good pellet. I just thought a sinking pellet would be kinda counter productive. and i didnt want a bunch of rotting food in my tank, ya know?!
 
From what I know about the trout pellets is that they're standard fisheries pellets to raise farm raised game fish. Being mass produced for a mass produced fish they're probably lacking in some vitamins and color enhancers like cartenoids. I wouldn't go that route. The Hikari stuff you're talking about is the Carnivore Food Sticks. I really like Hikari and the health and color on all of my fish that are fed Hikari is great.
 
Originally posted by somefinnfishy
BTW I'm bringing home silver babys 4 still have egg sacks (so cute).

I read somewhere not to buy baby arowanas with egg sacks, due to the fact that these babies were taken from their pops mouth and in the process, killing the pop... for a fish lover you don't want to support these breeders...

/my 2 cts
 
That's a nasty rumor. I have seen it brought up from time to time, but there is never any real reference, it's just an oft repeated thing.

Logically--you don't kill the source of your goods. It's like ripping up an orchard to get the apples--might work once, but what about next year?

As for the trout pellets...There are different kinds of trout pellets out there. Getting something that a hatchery uses should be okay--the nutritional needs of hatchery trout are researched closely and I know we put a lot of effort into finding the best food options to raise healthy fish. I would avoid the trout pellets that are commonly sold as bait. Those kind are designed to attract the fish, but not meet any nutritional needs.
 
some kinda fresh water crustation would be a nice scavenger.
BTW keep the live foods out of his tank feeders cause illness and its realy an unheathy diet for him If you cant locate trout pellets I will ship them to you for $12 for a 1/2lb.My old arro loved tetra reptomin (turtle food) If you must feed it meat make it a cocktail shrimp as a treat every other day.
 
my aros tankmates will be 2-3 rays. not sure if crustatians would be a good thing or not. i know rays will search for food, but i'm pretty sure they arent going to scavenge for sunken pellets. the only problem i'm having with floating food, is the current pushing things into my overflows. woke up with a feeder guppy in each overflow. still alive, swimming around. hehe.
 
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