Arowana girth?

[ally07]

Hi all

I was just wondering recently, how do I encourage more vertical growth in my green? He's growing horizontally at a rate of about 2cm/ month (not great, but getting there), but he doesn't seem to be putting on muscle mass around the middle. Is it a case of waiting for him to finish growing long-ways before he will grow wide, or is there something I can change to balance out the growth?

Thanks

[myfishybuisness]

i would say add some current to the tank ( maybe a wave pump) thus making him fight the current and gain muscle, thats what i have read anyway

[snookie]

i think it could be a gender thing as well ,

[henward]

2cm a month, that is good growth.

i would not complainw tih that, the end of the day. tahts .75 inch a month.

thats perty much the best an aro can do.

some aro genetecally can do 1inch a month but really, realistically asian aros dont grow that fast in most cases, for 2 to 3 months i got 1 inch a month on my rtg but tapererd off pretty quickly to .75 as well.

even champion aros grow .75 inches a month.

so i wont be so hard on yourself.

but key is to feed them up, i am a HUGE fan of masivore, stuff prawns with massivore and hikari sticks. they girth them up (if you are not already0

but generally, just time, it will get bigger, arowanas generally speaking ALWAYS get longer first then when that tapers, they grow thicker....

Current COULD helpbut really, i would leave it, i would feed it more varied diet.

1) What is the diet of the arowana, total breakdown.

Reason is that you should vary diet, I mean you should feed prawn, pellets (if you can stuff the prawn), LIVE FOOD, and my favourite FD Krill/Shrimp.

FD Shrimp is 63% protein and has good carotenes in it!! that will fatten them up fast.

basically, if you look at a small piece of fd shrimp, you can pretty much say half of that is pure protein!!

iwould try that.

Live food once or twice a week is good.

iw ould contact insect direct and buy 30 medium crix, feed them pellets - and feed 2 to 3 time a week.

i have a rule now. prawn and FD krill first, then locusts:D

my red though was never fed live food i think and is still semi weary of locusts lol

[Fruju]

Do whatever henward tells you to do

His RTG is FAT! healthy fat though, no people Im not encouraging obesity.

[snookie]

KFC DOUBLE DOWN :sick:

[ally07]

OK.. Complete diet breakdown is:

1. Hikari food sticks (gonna get the bigger version once my packet runs out)

2. Prawns (1-2x a week)

3. FD silkworm pupae

Problem is, recently I weaned him off prawns (which he used to get everyday) and got him onto pellets which was really good. BUT he started to get really aggro at his tank mates (ate 2 convicts and killed 1 for fun), even though he has NEVER shown any interest in them. So I increased his prawns to every other day, and now he's stopped eating the pellets. :facepalm: He's now being starved so that he will eat his pellets again.

I don't mind stuffing pellets into prawns, but it's so tedious that I do it in big batches (1kg of prawns) and freeze them. Problem is, they get frozen together and I have to constantly defrost/ refreeze the prawns which I've read isn't good for it. Bottom line, it's just easier to give him pellets straight up. Once he's back on the pellets I was thinking of getting some locusts as a reward for eating the pellets, maybe 2-3 nights/ week (as per your advice).

Not having much luck with the silkworm pupae because whenever he bites it, it seems like 80% comes out of his gills, which I don't really mind because there are bottom feeders, but it's not going into him lol. Last night I tried soaking a massivore for a while to soften it but he wouldn't have it lol, so I think food sticks will have to do.

[Fruju]

KFC DOUBLE DOWN :sick:

Haha! Good call!

Its a pretty yuck burger tbh, had to try it though. :slfg:

[henward]

fair call.

with silk worm, i stuffed into prawn and he ate it, no problems.

what you will fi nd is that, even though most come out, he still gets a good part of it, enough to give him the goodies i guess.

your diet is fine. i would keep feeding pellets, and prawns focus. i would stuff massivore into prawns, much easier, massivores are not designed for aros i believe and not as easy to get themto eat it.

i jsut decided to stuff prawns full time, FD krill currently AHT but im getting HIKARI, i just found out hikari FD KRILL actually is enriched with vits as opposed to just plain old FD shrimp from AHT. so AHT i will save for blending into my beefer clown mix when the hikari FD krill arrives.

as for live food, i really relaly believe live food stimulates growth, not about the protein, not about the vits in them, thoguh there is a good amount.

more the stimulation and n atural instinct kicks in and perhaps hormones are secreted to make them grow, this is what i have found.

i will feed live locust 3 to 5 times a week currently.

Soon i will feed gold fish 1 to 2 times a week.

really a massive variety, high protein is what i did.

but fish to fish differs, yours may not want to get as thick as others.

but you seem to be doing the right things, pellets, high protein, cant go wrong!

i wouldnt even bother with prawns if they eat pellets.

i would just do pellets and live food occasionally.

Or pellets, prawns and live food.... ideal.

also, because its green aro, you are not that focusedon the RED colours. so i would try beef heart strips.

Or salmon strips - fillets. its actually cheaper than pellets per Kg!!

[ally07]

But don't you reckon that the size of the FD krill/ shrimp is sorta too small to make a difference? You'll need a hell of a lot of FD krill/ shrimp to really give the aro good nutrients, right??

[henward]

i guess its variety.

IMO and what i have seen, is that it makes a difference. FD krill just adds to the nitriotinal value of what they eat.

also maybe we overestimate what aro needs perhaps?

[ally07]

Hmm.. Maybe I'll grab some fd krill when my sw pupae runs out. Decided to just keep stuffing the prawns lol.. I figure if I can trick him into eating 4-6 massivore a day he will really put on some muscle. Gonna try to get some locusts soon too if I can find some.

[henward]

yeah thast plenty

really, a massivore is usppose dto be a 3.5 cm gold fish equivalent.

its massive! no punn intended.... 8)

anyways, stuffing is fine,.

my aro still chews at times and doesnt always eat the pellets or what ever i stuff in there, but it gets the odd massivore/hikari/silkworm bits. thats fenough

i fed it gold fish today to get its appetite and agro goin!

locusts and mealworms, fasting day tomorrow.

i have added mealworms into its menu! i bought 2000 of them.

thinking i should start breeding them again in small scale peryhaps

[ally07]

i have added mealworms into its menu! i bought 2000 of them.

Where on earth did you get 2000 mealworms?! (and how much did it cost, if you don't mind me asking?)

[henward]

not that expensive.

i used to breed them. easy to breed, just takes time, but not much effort.

i had 4 to 5 takeaway containers filled with them , pure worms, nothing else, frozen ready for my rtg.

freezer broke down one day, they all went off lol

but, may start breeding them again, just a few for myself. no more reptiles exc3ept leopard geckos and they really dont eat that much

[ally07]

i had 4 to 5 takeaway containers filled with them , pure worms, nothing else, frozen ready for my rtg.

freezer broke down one day, they all went off lol

:facepalm: Technology, eh? Haha.. Seriously, Henward, do you do ANYTHING on a small scale? Your tanks are huge, your fish are huge, your filtration is insane, your home-bred feeders are more than what most of us would use in a year! :nilly:

[henward]

it was jsut cheaper!

i guess it came down to cost and economy, my hobby was costing too much.

hence the sale too.

but i mean i was feeding heaps.

i have read articleson aros from champions and breeders on Arowanaclub.com.

and they have reported that colour development is not just age.

colour development on arowana is related to size of the arowana, of course maturity plays a party but they noticed that the faster the arowana grows, the faster the colour comes out.

so i guess i dont regulate their eating.

i dont wanna spoil them with live food, but i will feed as much as they will eat in a day.

generally speaking.

[ally07]

I guess that makes sense. I mean, I haven't done as much reading on aro colour as you probably have, but in my logic, colour is secondary. Think about it this way, in the wild, the fish's first aim is to eat what it can when it can. By being the biggest fish in the pond, he's the king. Fish don't appreciate each other's colour unless they are mating, so an arowana will probably only need good colour when it is old enough to mate (if they do look at colour when picking a partner). So all the nutrients of its early life will logically go into size then once the growth tapers, the nutrients will go into the secondary level of colouration.

But that's just my own thinking. Makes some sense to me, but it might be rubbish to a marine biologist lol.

[henward]

well, makes sense, its logical.

your comments are based on logical, scientific theory which is what we base our knowledge on when it comes to fish, simply applied to another species.

so i buy it:D

from whati have seen, getting the aro to a good healthy size, girth and activity level is key.

colour will come with good water, food and care.

then tanning

[ally07]

Just curious, has your red identified you as the owner yet? Like, does it swim up to you and try to get close to you? Love it when my green comes up to get a good look at me when I'm near the tank lol - ESPECIALLY during feeding time. :roll:

[henward]

funny, if fish actually identify their owner.

never tried having my friend come up and see if they come close lol

it hink its just they know its feeding time.

its starting to.

last 3 days were mroe apparently, i believe its settling in.

its also attacking locusts more readily. whcih is funny cos live food liek that is usually their fav, but didnt attack it and keeps swimming under it.

what if ound was when the locst starts to climb the over flow or branch sticking out of water, they jump to grab it more readily than when just floating,. in my reds case anyway.

but yeah, today, had 2 to 3 locusts, a whole shrimp with massivore, gold fish and a good amount of mealworms:D

[ally07]

I reckon aros are just naturally keen jumpers lol. My green sometimes jumps when he hears a droplet of water hitting the surface from the condensation on the lid! But geez, that's a huge appetite for your red considering its size. Nice work!

[henward]

it wasnt like that to begin wiht, just getting its appetite back.

but yeah, i make a rule though, nothing else unless he eats prawns in the morning.

if he doesnt, nothing else for the rest of the day but prawns.

yeah, today i saw a moth sit on the glass, it was tryign to eat it through the glass lol

hilarious.

[henward]

wednesday, i fed brutus heavily. full feed, shrimp, locusts, fd shrimp and mealworms, goldfish, massive feed.

fasted yesterday for the 1 a week fast day.

today, appetite has increased, aggressionin feding increased.

comes up to tank, attacks my finger and today thsi rmoning ate almost 50% more shrimp than normal!

i dose with seachem nourish every other day.

[ally07]

Nice stuff! After a feed of prawns on Wednesday, my green went into 'auto-fast' yesterday, so I'm expecting a big feed tonight. Just a question, when you stuff the prawns' heads, do you remove the very small barbs on the sides of the head, beside the main horn? Or are those small enough not to bother about? I've realised that prawn heads can fit 3 massivores inside, so it's worth keeping lol.