I hate doing this, but I have to disagree with the minimum tank size listed here... sorry Ray. A healthy arrowana will outgrow a 125 gallon tank by its 2nd year or sooner. Unfortunately, our zoo has a number of them, all orphaned from fish keepers who bought those cute little babies at the pet store, yolk sac still attached, and when they could no longer house them, they were given to the zoo. Depending on the specific species, some arrowanas can reach an average of 4 - 5 ft long easily, (such as the silver arrowana) and the cost of feeding an adult is something even the zoos struggle to do.
The store where I used to work took a number of them in over the years... and finally stopped selling them because they all ended up coming back to us or dying because they are not suitable as a "house pet". Minimum tank size for an adult arrowana should be at least 300+ gallons, and that still would be a lot of work and a tight fit for a fish that needs a lot of surface area and plenty of swimming room.
I DO agree with the opinion that its best to tell the person asking that its not a proper fish for keeping in a home aquarium. It would be much easier to find a more appropriate fish after knowing what size aquarium the person is working with. There are a lot of appropriate fish out there that do wonderfully in an aquarium environment... this just isn't one of them.
Dawn
Dawn Moneyhan
Aquatics Specialist/Nutritionist
To learn more about me go to
http://www.helium.com/users/449334
--- On Sat, 11/27/10, Ray <sevenspringss@wmconnect.com> wrote:
From: Ray <sevenspringss@wmconnect.com>
Subject: [tropical fish club] Re: arowana
To: tropicalfishclub@yahoogroups.com
Date: Saturday, November 27, 2010, 11:07 PM
Hello Alireza,
Arowanas are not difficult to keep, but it is not possible to keep one in a small aquarium for very long, as they grow quite fast. You have not said what size tank you have, but unless it is at least 100 US Gallons (378.5 Litres) you would eventually be confining the fish to too small of an environment for its comfort. Such an adequate size tank is needed to promote proper growth, health and longevity (long life time) of the fish.
These fish are often sold very young, with the yolk sack still attached. While they may be raised from this size successfully, they may sometimes refuse your food offerings after their yolk sack is absorbed, often leading to the death of the animal. You are better off to pay a little more and get one nearer 5" or 6" in length, and that you can see that it is eating when asking the store owner to show you that the fish is really eating before you buy it. Still, to give you some idea of its growth rate, an Arowana starting out at the stage of still having its yolk sack can reach 12" within 10 months, on average.
Arowanas will easily reach at least 42" (105 cm.) in captivity (in the aquarium), so a small tank is not able to be used to raise one in. For this reason, I would have to recommend against you (or the person asking you about it) purchasing one of these fish unless you want to first buy a larger tank for it. A 378 Litre tank would be the very smallest tank you could house this fish in. For the most comfort for the fish a 473 Litre (125 US gallon) tank or even a 568 Litre (150 US Gallon) tank would not be too large for this fish, since this larger tank would be 60 cm. (24") wide, allowing the fish more turning room even though they are flexible enough to be able to turn in 45 cm. (18"). The tank should be covered at all times, as they are great jumpers. They eat best when you can supply them with live food, unless you can get them to eat fish pellets or the like.
Ray
--- In tropicalfishclub@yahoogroups.com, "nassiri.alireza10" <nassiri.alireza10@...> wrote:
>
> My name is Alireza Nassiri. I'm a boy from IRAN and I'm 17.
> I'm searching about some information about Arowana and I want know how can I keep small one in an aquarium .
> I have a weblog and a person ask me about this and I should answer him.
> please tell me your information about this fish.
> my weblogs address is:
> www.arowana.persianblog.ir
> but if you want see that you should know persian.
> I cant speak English very well please tell me my problems in my message,and please don't use hard words in your message that you write your answer in that.
>
> thanks a lot.
>
>
> alireza.
>
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
No comments:
Post a Comment