108 Must Know Arowana Facts

Arowana Facts: Introduction:

Arowanas are freshwater fishes.
Bones of arowanas are peculiar in comparison of other fresh water fishes that are common in aquarium trade.
Arowanas are classified in the ‘Osteoglossidae’ family of fishes.
‘Osteoglossidae’ are commonly known as ‘Bony Tongues’.
Mainly they are divided into three regions, Asian arowana, African arowana and South American or Amazonian arowana.
Additional to above there is one more strain native to Australian.

Arowana Facts : History

Arowana are classified into ‘Osteoglossiformes’ order.
Their suborders is ‘Osteoglossidei’.
Of this suborder they are classified under the ‘Osteoglssidoe’ family.
The ancestors of arowana appeared thousands of year ago during the Ostaceous period.
They were basal teleports.
Teleports are the ray finned fishes in which an arrangement of bones extend to the extremities of fins.
They evolved into several strains.
Though several are extinct now, many of which we came to know about through possible.
One section known as Arapaimidae which include large bony tongue fishes native to the great Amazon River of South America.
These fishes from Amazon are known as Arapaima.
This Arapaimidae family also includes African Arowanas.
Though they have similar features, Arapaimidae and Osteoglossidae are considered two separate genera by many experts.
Theory suggests that Australian arowana and Asian arowana splits occurred towards the end of the Jurassic period.
This split occurred because of the movement of Indian plate towards the Asian plate.
This led to the development of two known strains of Australian Arowanas and several others strains of Asian Arowanas.

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Arowana Facts: Appearance

All Arowanas are elongated fishes.
Their bodies evolved to leap high into air with just a flick of that strong tall end.
This specialization have evolved because of their environment and feeding requirement.
Evolution may be the reason but this gave us one of the most sought after and prized fishes of the aquarium trade.
Bodies of all members of Osteoglossidae family are similar.
Pectoral fins are long and short in some species whereas in some they are short and of rectangular shape, with covering 20% of the body length.
Apparently, every sub-species of Osteoglossiae
Have large semi-circular scales.
Every sub-species like silver arowana, Australian Jardine arowana, Indonesian green characteristics common to them.
Slight difference in shape, size, color and number of scales are used to indentily different sub-species.
There are slight differences in between some sub-species and in few there are drastic changes because of evolution.
When we will elaborate every common sub-species of osteoglaossidae then we will explain these features in detail.
Allarowana types have been sight and large eyes.
This vision have evolved as an evolution to assist them hunt in dark places and to leap during might to catch insects or small birds in their natural habitat.
This is the reason why so many aquarium arowanas were lost because they tend leap too much.

Arowana Facts: Housing the Beasts

The heading in itself is self-explanatory of the upcoming discussion.
Almost all arowanas and arapaima’s are behemoth monsters. That is so very true when we consider other fishes that are common in aquarium trade.
Almost all exotic varieties like red tail golden arowana, red arowana, and green arowana can grow beyond 36 inches in length.
To rouse them large tanks are needed.
Also they can live beyond 20 years if optimum conditions and proper care is provided.
It is necessary to keep this in mind before getting this fish.
Ultimately, you will have to keep this fish in a very large tank. Preferably a 25 feet tank with at least 4 feet width.
But mostly this size of tanks of tank is impractical and commitment of owner is farfetched.
Still a 6 feet long, 3 feet wide and 3 feet high tank is practical till the fish grows to 2.5 feet to 3 feet in length.
I believe that by the time your arowana will be hitting 3 feet length it would be already 8-10 years old.
By this time you must consider getting a 12 feet long, 6feet wide and at least 3 feet deep pond or even in wall tank.
There will still be 15-20 years remaining of its life and it will grow a bit more, provided good care is given to the fish.

Arowana Facts: The Cleaning Tank

If we compare arowana with other giant fishes like paces, giant gourami, red tail catfish, Oscar sect they are relatively cleaner.
Personally I always prefer arowanas above other big aquarium fishes solely because of the case of keeping them, especially in terms of keeping their tank clean.
As stated earlier arowanas should be kept in large tank, with large tanks there will be large volumes of water.
Here we are talking about 500lts to 2000lts of volume, with such amounts of water you need a very efficient filtration system.
A large tank as in the case of arowana needs all 3 kinds of filtrations i.e, chemical filtration, mechanical filtration, biological filtration.
A large sump filter or large canister filter is what does the duty best.
Both of these kinds of filters are commercially available but you can always make one of your home and can customize it to suit your requirements easily.
There are some very important perimeters and conditions that you really need to take care regarding filtration of an arowana tank.
Remember arowanas are fresh water fishes so they need really clean water to thrive and survive.
But there comes a relief in the fact that arowanas don’t get their water disrty too much.
Regular water change cycles should be done and timing can be customized.
More or less a 25% weekly change is good but it can be extended fairly.
If you are keeping your arowana in a large tank like a 700-1000 gallons tank coupled with good under gravel filter fed in a large canister filter or sump filter, you can even extend this weekly water change to once in a month water change.
Not more than 50% of water should be replaced after 425% water change cycles.
It is necessary that you must not change arowana water more than 50% at one time.
This must be done to avoid overwhelming stress on the fish.
Most of the time extreme water changes like 75% or over can lead to digestive disorders, tough respiratory problems may also occur.
Outside filtration material should be cleaned in every 2-3 days.

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Arowana Facts: Arowana Food

Feeding an arowana may or may not be a problem.
This solely depends upon individual fish under consideration.
Arowana can be choosy; but mostly this problem is related to young juviniets.
Adult Arowana can be shifted from one food to another with relative ease.
Some recommend diet based on their natural food selection.
These include different types of fishes like mostly guppy small barbs and tetras, frogs, centipedes, cockroaches, of small size to small young arowanas.
To bigger individuals, bigger feeder fishes like common varieties of gold fish and koi carp are better suited because of ease of housing in.
All of the above mentioned food options are very good portion source.
But there are certain precautions that you need to take before administrating live food to your arowana.
Always remember that there is a possibility of viral or bacterial contamination in newly acquired feeds fish pr for that matter any fish you are adding fresh in your aquarium.
If you feed a sick fish to your prized arowana there is no denying of the possibility of your arowana getting sick.
To avoid this you need a quarantine tank.
Quarantine tank is used to house feeder fishes that you just have bought.
Your house you knew feeder fish for one to two weeks to avoid mixing new fish with the old ones and spreading diseases in the whole tank.
If there creeps` any signs of diseases you can treat effected fishes separately in the quarantine tank.
Remember, never feed fresh fish to your expensive fishes like arowana or any other fish without observing feeder fish for health for at least one or if possible two weeks.
Still there will be some risks, but if you must take these risks then you must at least feed them healthy fish to your best knowledge.
To responsibly feed live fish to arowana will to take a far greater commitment then it looks like, especially if you are planning to keep your arowana for its whole life.
To avoid unnecessary hap hazard and hard work in feeding your fish then you can go for processed meek and special arowana commercial food.
There are several supportive reasons to choose specialized commercial food to your arowana than feeder fish.
First of all, this will save you much effort in maintaining a separate quarantine tank and to treat any diseased feeder fish.
The risk of transferring an infection from dry food is far less than live food.
You can always control the quantity and control of the food when you would be using commercially available foods.
In the market there is a huge range of commercial food available from which you can chose depending upon the parameters and of cerise the retail price.
You can precisely prefer any grade or any brand to enhance any specific parameter.
You can focus on high protein, color enhancement, organic content, digestive enzymes and several other parameters
Additional to this regular chicken, lamb etc can also be provided.
Personally I recommend combining all of the above options.
I have several arowanas some like live food, some prefer pallet or stick food while others like chicken meat cut down to stripe.
As for the commercial packaged food I prefer to use hiker carnivore sticks because of its digestive enzymes.

Arowana Facts: Types and Breeds commonly available

Earlier in this article I have already pointed out the bifurcation of osteoglassidaler into Asian, Amazonian, Australian and African lines. Here I would like to enlist common arowana breeds that are wide spread in aquarium trade.
The most common and instantly recognizable most wider spread in whole aquarium trade is the silver arowana.

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