hi guyz,
i getting a 2nd hand fish tank but previously its was use for salt water fish.
so now would it be safe for arowana?

if can then i have more budget for aro...

wat type of experiment are u thinking of?
issit for college bio-class assignment, where you want to test the behavioral characteristics of the animal based on your thesis?

cuz if you are thinking of experimenting in the sense of dissecting or experimenting new dishes...then we will look for you and shoot you  lol
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hey, today i went to lfs to ask about how the aro's get their calcium for bones, cuz i was worried about the fish bone structure not being strong enuf.
the lfs owner said its very little from the feeder fish/prawn shells that we give.....some of it comes from the vitamins we put in the water too....and a bit from the water itself o.o

He advised that some ppl actually inject the vitamin soln to the super worms itself then feed it to the aro straight after....
i was like @.@ at the injecting part cuz i myself afraid of needles (unless its comming from a very pretty nurse )
so just wana ask if anyone has tried doing that before...like inject the vita to worms ....and where do we get those injection needles neways lol!? arent they like banned from public hahaha (i doubt clinics or pharmacies would provide.....even if you tell them you wana stick a worm and make it super [they'd probly get the wrong idea....if ye know what i mean  ])

cucumber very cheap.. thats wat my mum told me... i jus sliced a bit abit... anyway.. 1kg SW rm24 worth it?

dunno lol i never bought 1kg before, must be crazy a lot cuz those things are like very light even in a small container of about 120....if i kg i'd be guessing a whole bucket full :S

i tried feeding carrots directly today...it just spat it out lol, so i stuck it into the chopped mp and it took it down without knowing whahaaaaha lololol
i'll try direct cucumber tmr

ya i casually selling the ornate bichir....i dont mind keeping it either cuz its a good one and its gotten bigger lately....but at the same time i dun mind lessening the feeding needs and thus bio load as well...altho the bb's seem to be more than capable of handling it anyways
that ad quite long ago oledy lol, aaaalll the way at the back :S

now i just thinking if that lfs actually can sell me a needle to inject the sw with vitamin soln....i have a bit of uneasy feeling doing that...i scared too much vita direct fed to the aro oso not good :S


recently after long hours of observation. i have discovered that the aro cannot really see the food i use my chopsticks to hold on top of the water...when the tank lights are off =.="
its like i sorta notices but at the same time it cant see it o.o

here's the scenario, usually at about 8pm when my tank lights are on, i just hold the worm out on the chopsticks about 2 cm above the water and the aro gets really excited and gets into position to pounce at the worm and slooosh!! it just grabs the worm and chews happly and repeats process again until its full....

just a few days again i did the same thing at the same feeding time, but with no tank lights on.....only the room lights are on it comes around the hanging worm but stops for a bit...then swims on....as if unsure if it really is there or not....then comes around...stops for a bit then goes off....
..
this doesnt mean its not hungry, cuz when i drop the worm down on the water....it will eagerly rush to eat it....

to test this out, i turn back on the aquarium lights....and it will be so excited and jump up at the worm again....
so conclusion is that the aquarium lights does affect the aro's ability to see what's above the water (and that indirectly meaning room lights are not enough) 
so now you might ask, what has this got to do with anything?!! so what, i'll just turn my lights on 24/7 etc...

well....this is a theory i have for red's having de issues...

basically aros in nature have a natural view of whats at the surface of the water, which keep them also looking upwards for thier source of food (ie. insects/birds) hence the alternative ridiculous name 'water monkey'.
Thats y the aros in nature dont develope de much ...quite rarely...

however, for those that are in aquariums, since without proper natural lighting, they cant really see whats above the water...so they dont use that "look above water surface ability (hence forth abrv to LAWSA)" much...

being that they dont use the lawsa much the eyes start to become "LaZy eyes"

I'm not implying that our aro's are in prison here but its just a scenario to explain it.....
the prisoners in their prison cells always look down....y?...cuz they got ntg to look up to!! LOL

.............................................................................

now currently the methods i'm using to assist with the de prevention are as follows:
1) hang the wormies/crickets above water in the see thru plastic container
2)always hold the mp, wormies, food above the water if possible.....with chopsticks!!
3) use fingers to imitate the effect of crickets skimming above water surface to make the aro zoom from one end of the tank to the other (whenever i feel free to do so) to give it some good exercise
4) include floating bio balls and floating smiley balls (positive balls) to make the aro play dodge ball all day long, hence requiring to focus at looking ahead to dodge the balls instead of down

method 2, 3, 4 are quite ok by itself...

but method 1 is not in effect if the aquarium lights are not turned on...cuz it cant see above the water well without the tank lights (usually my tank lights are only turned on when i'm at home ....auto set to turn on at 5.30pm-11.15pm)

but then again, having to turn on the aquarium lights all day long can increase the heat of the tank which nowadays its naturally at 32d.c if not accommodated by fan/aircond etc to cool it down...

and having the lights turned on 24/7 to me might be stressful for the aro eyes...imagine having a bright light at your forehead all day long...i'd probly get droppy eyes myself if i had that LOL

....now...i'm thinking of probly getting a secondary light...less power consumption, very light....just enuf to light up the container of worms to get the aro to notice it....probly might work...
Criticism and comments are welcomed
lets build our knowledge 

wao, u hit the gym really often eh

yeah, i wish i cud turn back time and farking bat that moron .... i will never take advise from him again...stupid guy at oug lfs zzzz

all i said to him was " my aro jumped and injured itself on the scale, i'm looking for a slime coat protection thing"....and he tells me about infections from water etc and that the yellow powder will provide antibiotics as well as provide slime coat protection blah blah....and i saw the friggin thing is in jap totally....so like i felt like wadaheck just trust him for once....

i did ask him if it will affect the bb filter and he said no no no it wont....

i go back..put 1/2 the powder into the aq, water stained yellow as was advised...then i went online and fuggin found out its actually antibacterial stuff argh!!!

my weeks and weeks of dedicated bb growing zzzz!! argh!!!!

hello there..  =) 
4 X 2 X 2.....i dunno what filtration it is called..it's those build in at the side of the aquarium.. i already had two bichir and four oscar in that aquarium..
but i really didn't thought of getting an aro that expensive...before that i thought of getting one below 500... now this grade 2 i saw is already over budget... but it's really much redder than any others ranging from 300-500(banjar red and grade 1.5, that's what those shop name em) that i've saw so far...been from jalan pasar to kuchai laman, then to sea park, then to taman ikan emas to look for aro..  lol...took me 4 hours on close observations

total, I've been to 10 shop so far

hello there..  =) 
4 X 2 X 2.....i dunno what filtration it is called..it's those build in at the side of the aquarium.. i already had two bichir and four oscar in that aquarium..
but i really didn't thought of getting an aro that expensive...before that i thought of getting one below 500... now this grade 2 i saw is already over budget... but it's really much redder than any others ranging from 300-500(banjar red and grade 1.5, that's what those shop name em) that i've saw so far...been from jalan pasar to kuchai laman, then to sea park, then to taman ikan emas to look for aro..  lol...took me 4 hours on close observations

total, I've been to 10 shop so far

Aww Man, my aro also chew and spit out then chew, spit out. Now me tension... Is that a sign of Bad mood or something?? 

Its been like this since i got back from KL. Till 2day its 5 days.. Well Atleast he still swallow it after biting it..=.=

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Added on April 16, 2010, 11:04 amAnd i only feed it once every night with 1 or 2 Crikets. But the time im in KL, i dont know how much my bro feed it.. Thats worry me..=.=

LOL..same condition as mine...i am gonna starve it for 2 days then feed again....damn "lansi lanyong" fall bottom edi, then dowan..lol...

even if i feed it everyday, it will only eat like 1 SW...the 2nd worm, it will bite and spit out...2 days starvation, and i shall see how it will response..hoho

oh haha, for me and pigpig we both keep in our bedroom
quite the hardcore lol

There are pro's and con's with the keeping in bed room but in terms of feng sui i really no idea lol

with regards to feng sui, as long as i keep the fan blowing (fung) and water running (sui) in the tank then i have achieved fung sui oledy
LOOOOOOL

you can also add a fan

but it will evaporate water really fast.

yep totally agree....dont bother with the ph so much. Ph stability is more important than achieving and maintaining desirable ph for the certain aro.

Our water ph is naturally avg 7.5

so keeping it in that range is easiest and trouble free. in my past i oso panic like siao cuz my ph was 7.8 and now after 5 months oledy its dropped to 7.6 (verly little) and getting closer to my tap water ph which is like 7.4-7.6

so yah, just let it go down....for me all i do is just keep a bag of cc in there and thats it....just a handfull only for ph stabalization. i used to care about dkh and ph and even calcium levels =.="....now i just dun care at all...so long as doing wc every week is good oledy. and wash filter every 2-3 months

for me i add azoo aro vitamin soln to boost appetite

Mmm i think all aro vita's cost about the same, on avg its close to rm50 i think. I have to go back and check if the price tag still on my azoo aro vita bottle lol. I'll post it when i get back.

the current in water will definetly give it some excercise but dun go overboard loe, just like us human on a treadmill jogging oso we need to have rests, cant be jogging all day long 24/7 rite lol.
In terms of increasing its hunger, i guess it wud, and yeah it shud affect the growth rate but not to any significant degree....i'm guessing it wud become leaner and muscular (see how you want it to look like bruce lee or hulk hogan loe  ) but with regards to growth on length i believe that comes in time and genes, not by the excercise.

As for the aro going beserk i'm not much of an expert here cuz my aro is calm but only will get a bit intimidated if i wave my palms around the glass.
In your case, maybe it needs to settle in and have to give it some time to get used to you.

other factors can include the lighting - try to give it some rest with the lights. Like mine the lights are timed to turn on at 12pm and go off at 11pm. Therefore it gets the lights off during night time , i sleep it sleep 

Also the noise level or human traffic around the tank
kids are very scary !!
Other than that you can try adding in some salt to help its repiratory functions.

hope this helps 

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Added on May 6, 2010, 9:57 am

totally agree....me stop giving sw with pigpig as well   
no more sw!! i think earthworm still ok guah, but problem is the soil that the earthworm has inside its body ar....when the aro eat it, will poo out the soil oso lol, then have to literally sweep up the soil in the middle of the tank 

ya, slowly week by week increase the tank volume...

i dont get why they insist to have 1/2 tank or something with regards to acclimating aros...its really nonsense to me...
when i got my aro my tank was 90% water full all the way and the aro was calm as anything  totally zen mode

maybe its cuz i'm using azoo arowana live water? lol no idea 
what i did discover was that if you leave the aquarium lights on at night, and turn off the lights in the room outside...it will start to panic....

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Added on May 7, 2010, 1:32 pmyesterday nite i discovered a little something.

I was driving back home and thinking of my lovely arowana....
and how it was starving since i've been trying to get it to take the hikari aro sticks with no success for a week oledy and it was breaking my heart doing so 

so i decided to go and kepo kepo at the lfs which i always do...and tot wadahek might as well try a diff type of pellet type food...
so since i felt azoo brand is good i bought azoo arowana 9 in 1 foodsticks...
reason was cuz that there might be the case that my aro just totally doesnt like hikari taste/smell at all...

ok so when i got home...i threw in one azoo stick....totally ignored it lol =.=" i was like farrrrkk...
then i noticed that my kerai fish which are usually very piggish will sure eat anything oso not taking notice of it....
maybe its totally new lol they dunno tis food yet hahaaha...

so i threw in a handfull...and can see a bit of the oil comming out from the sticks on the surface (which is what is supposed to be attracting the fish to come eat it)....and sure enuf...after a few minutes the kerai started to attack the azoo sticks...

then guess what....my aro cudnt tahan the smell and oso went to chew chew chew!!! i was like...."Yataaaaaaaa!!!"

but then i noticed it was chewing it till it was all in peices lol, not really eating it...just chew chew chew and the peices flying out of the mouth lol...
i was like faaaaaaaaaaarkkkkk....

oh well...at least its progress...

oh ya i got the azoo sticks instead of hikari cuz hikari arowana food sticks apparently not much lfs sell it anymore due to fail with sale...

some of the lfs i visited around my place said they wont ever order and sell again...only hikari orlanda for goldfish and koi hikari they will continue but not for arowana...

so i tot wadaheck i better get something more available then having to drive all the way down to xlsa to get more hikari lol...
however if you ask me, feeding forzen bloodworms cube to live ghost shrimps, and then feeding it to the aro directly (make sure you break the razor horn) is by far the most nutritous food you can feed your arowana...but its obviously costly and time consuming la..

the left over ghost shirmp fed with blood worm you can just dry freeze them and feed them the next day wan....least thats what i used to do on weekeds when i'm free...

but for the moment i'm gonna stick to azoo foodstick for a month or two till it really accepts it readilly then only will go back to giving it that too.

1) disease free
2) vitamins and balanced diet
3) not fattening = less chance of bulging eyes/ drop eyes
4) carotenoids ensured / enhanced - best for reds
5) easy to store and noiseless as compared to insects
6) no need to chop or wash like mp or fish meat
7) buy a bottle and only visit the lfs shop once a month - less you go there less your money fly outta your pocket

yaloh..it is still young now ma...tahts y i training it to take the pellets.

ya i used to stuff the mp with hikari but then when the aro suspects that there is hikari thru chewing on the mp it will spit the mp and not accept mp anymore...for a day or two...

i planning to get it to take the foodsticks as staple food. Once it accepts the foodsticks readily then only i will start to slowly give some mp every once in a while..and some bloodworm fed ghost shrimps for a treat

insects are a big nono oledy...

hmnn yeah i guess so...i'll try hiding myself >.<

insects are like drugs for arowanas....once they start, they will become really really REALLY addicted to it....and they are fattenin...at least now we know that sw is quite fattening lol...

i pref slender sexy red dress lady...not buffy lady

@leggedy- can help me check 6' x 3' x 3' tank? i wanna put outside so stand is metal if possible. Thanks

Gooood mmmeewwwning !!!! ^.^

I'm so happy this morning, when i put in the hikari sticks, i saw my arowana after a while went to eat 1/2 of one stick!!

Slowly ....but surely....soon....very soon....i can feel it!!!