Hey everyone,

I have been eagle eying this site for a while looking at the forums but I figured that I should finally post something Also by the by...FANTASTIC WEBSITE!!! Bar none on these particular fish and members present!!! I also provided some pics of the tank and fish just to give you guys an idea (camara sucks sorry )Moving on now with my questions!

Well I just purchased a 5" silver arowana for my 180 gallon fish tank (72" x 24" x 24")...Dont worry this is just his grow out tank! But anyways I have had him for approximatly a good week or two and I want to make sure I am doing everything correctly.

My tank is 180 gallons (72" x 24" x 24") run by a rena XP4 cannister filter. Inside the filter is 1 basket of Sponge, 2 baskets of Ehiem substrat pro, and 1 basket of bio chem zorb and fine filter floss. I do a 30% water change and gravel syphon every 2 days...keeps the tank crystal clear and keeps paramiters down! Parameters are as follows: Temp: 80 F Ammonia-0 ppm, Nitrite-0 ppm, Nitrate-5.0 ppm. P.H. is nasty here (very close to 9) so I use an r/o unit for our water. water is mixed with 3 parts r/o water and 1 part tap water with an appropriate amount of prime which maintains the PH at 7.5 not great but STABLE!!! Lights is one 36" coralife fixture with 1 x 10 000K T5 Sunlight lamp and 1 x colour max 21 T5 lamp. Lights are on from 8 am to 10 pm (12 hours). I have a couple live plants in the tank to maintain water quality including duckweed for drawing out the nitrites+nitrates, muting the light, and comfort for the fish!

To start off with diet...my little guy takes everything that hits the water surface! But it works on a rotating schedule. He is fed twice a day (which will change when he is about 2-3 years old!) but morning feedings are alternating with one day being seafood (mussels, squid, clam, calimarhi, and prawns) and the next day being gut loaded de-headed mealworms and live crickets both gut loaded before hand with a mixture of carrots and hikari fish food. I will not feed feeders!!! and every night he gets a feeding of de-frosted hikari krill (for diet and colour!). Pellets are hikari food sticks which are provided when im in a rush (very little) or every couple of days I will put a couple of soaked pellets inside the seafood (just for dietary roundness). The best brand of food we have over here is hikari...so thats what he gets!

So far is it all sounding good? Or should I be doing something else? Please tell me everything else I may have missed? But my guy has a few torn fins (not fin rot) but from the place I got him from...but I am just wondering if I should be using anything to help him re grow his fins or is it just a waiting game. I do not like chemicals (I run all my fish tanks all O-Natural! ) so I would perfer to let it grow back on its own if I have too! And also one last thing...I add about 2 handfulls of aquarium salt once a week (on sunday) to help with any bacteria or disease that wants to try and rear its ugly head! I have salt so I understand that salt doesnt evaporate, and that is why when the tank needs a top off it gets done and that the salt only gets added after a few water changes.So I would just like a little guide on dosing! But sorry about the long post I just really wanted to give you guys a good breakdown of how it is all going so I hope for the most thurough awnsers back But he really seems to be colouring up and growing nicely! Me and the aro really appriciate it guys (and gals of course! ) thanks a million and happy fishing!!!

BTW...the pictures dont do this fish justace as far as colour goes!

very shiny colour in the aro! very nice!

Thank you very much Clot!

All and all so far so good...the aro is getting bigger and bigger each day! He also colours up each day...I cant take a real good photo (crappy @ss camera) but I will try! His body used to be all silver (when I bought him) and now he is a deep green and his fins have green and blue and a wonderful orange outline! Agian I will try to take a better photo...I am still worried about his fin though

Good luck with em! He's a great looking fish. Love the silvery color. What has he been eating?

Thanks SBDTHUR,

But if you are looking for a "silver" silver arowana my diet isnt great because since that picture he has turned a wonderful green with orange all through out! . But I feed him on a rotating schedule...

He is fed twice a day to start. Every monday, wednesday, and friday he is fed crickets and de-headed meal worms (I keep both in rubbermaid containers and I make sure they are "gut-loaded" with snap peas and carrots at least 24 hours before giving them to him) every morning and hikari frozen krill in the evenings.

On Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday he is fed both morning and night hikari frozen krill and on the odd chance just to give him something differtent he will ocassional get hikari food sticks. On every first and third sunday of the month he is given a "rest day" and every second and fourth sunday of the month he is given fresh seafood (squid, cahlimari, clam, shrimp, ect.).

As he gets older the diet will be changed and given more of a rest period and fed only once a day then evedry second day.

And as I said with clot I will take (or at least try) a way better picture to show his wonderful colours and by the by he isnt silver anymore

Thanks guys!

Hey guys (and gals of course! ),

But here is the "better" pictures of my aro...I need a much better camera, the flash just kills me X.X But in picture 195 if you look in the top reflection it can give you an idea of what colour green he is...and it is his whole body but it also has orange! SO PRETTY!!! And now for the coupe de' grace!!!! Picture 199 is him in his entirety right now as we speak but agian crappy camera (sorry people ). And once agian the pictures dont do this guy justice!!! So these are the results of my diet on him in 10 days! Hopefully things are going to be like this all the time Thanks for looking

Excellent fish....

I've never really looked too hard at the Arros before. But if I had the tank I would sure have one of those. Stunning, I love the pink coloring on the fins. And I just noticed the slight green tint to his scales.. Or am I kookoo ?

Great Catch, nice setup.

Nice fish man. Those are one of the fish that got me into the hobby, as my uncle had a 37" silver in his living room when I was a little kid. Diet sounds good... I suppose you can't feed too heavy if you're changing water three times a week. If there's no problems with disease or stress, I'd avoid adding the salt, just my opinion. It keeps them "healthy" by putting their metabolism overdrive and causing them to produce more body slime and mucous.... no big deal short term, but the added stress of not being in their natural, nearly salt-free environment can shorten their lifespan, however little. It seems like you want to do the best job you can possibly do here, so here's what I'd do: ditch the salt, dose a little mela-fix (all-natural melaleuca) here and there to heal up the fin, and once he's healed up, keep it on hand, should problems arise again.
Otherwise, I think that fish is living better than I am. Better lookin' than me too...

If there's no problems with disease or stress, I'd avoid adding the salt, just my opinion. It keeps them "healthy" by putting their metabolism overdrive and causing them to produce more body slime and mucous.... no big deal short term, but the added stress of not being in their natural, nearly salt-free environment can shorten their lifespan, however little


I thank you for the comment on your opinion Aquaria89. As far as salt goes the reason i am adding it in there is the theraputic reasons! I plan on ditching the salt after his aclimation period...its not a permanent thing but it can all be explained by the fresh water and the fishes blood.Because the blood of fish contains higher levels of NaCl than fresh water, there is a relative imbalence between water and the blood vessels of the fishes gills, requiring a significant energy expendature to maintain the high serum sodium cloride level. The addition of salt to the water reduces this differenc, thus lowering the required energy expendature and reducing stress on the fish. Also, reducing the difference in concentration of NaCl between the aros blood and the surrounding water reduces loss of salt caused by stress. I plan on after the acclimation period (one month) to completly remove the salt unless a disease or something pops up in the tank. So it is a short term thing just as kind of training wheels to help him with the acclimation stage! And also Aquaria89 with my diet I give the aro 5 minutes worth of feeding time and scoop out the un-eatin food out of the tank so it doesnt cause water paramiters to change or to pollute the tank!

Thanks everyone on the comments of the fish...he is by far the most entertaining fish I have ever had. I really appreciate the comments...about the set up and the fish! Dont forget that this tank is only his grow out tank

And dont worry SBDTHUR your not cookoo he is green my diet seems to be giving beautiful colours!!!

Thanks all and happy fishing!

Beautiful baby!! great pics too, i know how tough it is to get non-blurry pics of arowanas. not sure i have any of my arowana that aren't blurry.

i keep a small amount of salt in most of my tanks, i believe it helps prevent disease (mostly ich). And we had a few bouts with ich because of an LFS that doesn't give a damn.

Good Luck with your baby.