Fish: [tropical fish club] Re: arowana

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.
>