Exotic freshwater fishes hobby … Pushing furthermore
Okay, so now returning to the storytelling part.After 4 or 5 months of practicing maintenance of all 6 aquariums and getting comfortable with the routine, decided to bring in more.
Yeah! crazy as hell.
Now my main concern was that how much time can I get to further burden myself with the care of more fishes?
What species can I opt for?
How big ( and error, expensive ) new project/s are going to be?
After taking account of money, space, time, maintenance, feed availability and many other factors I decided three different species to choose from as I have settled my mind in just bringing one more aquarium in the home.
The AROWANA, the RED TAIL CAT FISH, and the DISCUS.
I loved the idea of building up a 6 feet long, 2 feet wide and 3 feet tall aquarium. The beauty of a cluster of, maybe 10-12 all red or all blue discus is so much fascinating. But there were some of the very basic problems or rather I should say challenges I rearing discuss fish effectively. This I will later discuss in detail when I will run a series on fresh water fishes. For now, I just can’t squeeze enough time to keep my discuss, if I opted for them, in perfectly good shape. So, I dropped the idea of beautiful discuss aquarium.
Now, next under consideration was RED TAIL CATFISH. Oh, I should acknowledge the magnificence of this fresh water fish. If properly cared and provided suitable growing conditions they could reach up to 4 feet in captivity. Yeah, a freaking, more than a meter, aquarium fish. Now, they are hardy fish and doesn’t require the same level of care as other exotic fishes, but they have their own issues. Messy eaters, the large quantity of feed, more waste and more maintenance. So I again dumped up the idea of getting a red tail catfish.
Now left with Arowana, I decided to move ahead with this FENG-SHUI fish. ( might have brought wealth and health to home, just joking). Now, for my situation I found Arowana to be the best possible, easily available next fish. Ideally, Arowana is best suited in my condition.
They are not messy. They consume less often. Their food is readily available and is cheap also. One can easily opt for packaged blood worms or other ready to use packaged Arowana food. Otherwise one can go for live feed also. But maintaining live feed is difficult and rearing comet golds or Mollys for feeding Arowana are relatively easy and cleaner than to breed live blood worms. So, even if live feed is better for Arowana, packaged Arowana feed is recommended until and unless you are desperate to provide ultimately best feed to your Arowana.
Once feed problem has been solved, now we need to consider which breed to have. After much discussion with multiple aquarium shops, many hours of googling and talking to a couple of owners I settled for silver Arowana. Though, many other options were available, like RTG Arowana, gold Arowana, green Arowana and many others. I chose silver Arowana because of mainly three reasons.
- They can live in multiple numbers if raised from young together.
- They are cheap compared to other varieties.
- They perform quite well on packaged feed.
Next step was the selection of aquarium. Arowana can grow to a fair size of 2-3 feet from nose to tail end, in a long run, if properly cared for. So I decided to bring a couple of juveniles of not more than 6 inches in length. For them, I need a tank at least 5 to 6 times longer than their length, so I decided to get a 3 feet long and 2 feet wide tank. This aquarium is estimated to house them for at least a year and a half. Arowana is a top dweller, this means that they don’t need a deep tank. So I choose the depth of 1.25 feet. Silver Arowanas are shiny in color, obviously, they are silver. Choosing a dark colored base will enhance their color. A black base would look good but I felt it would be a little drab, in the shop I found dark green granite pebbles, these made a perfect choice. A natural red stone, gray or dark gray, dark blue or any other dark colored base would do good. Any aquarium would be incomplete without a little decoration, wouldn’t it? So what decoration should be provided?
Personally, I don’t like overly decorated places. A decluttered minimalistic base is best for me. A contrasting color in the base would look good, I guess. So I experimented with different options. After a few takes, it just came out to be perfect. A large, approximately 10 inches wide, hemispherical sea shell that I sourced from Kerala made a perfect choice. It looked beautiful.
So, this is how I got my 7th aquarium. A beautiful large aquarium with a couple of dragons like baby Arowanas with dark green base gravel and a large white sea shell.
WHY DON’T YOU TRY THIS FOR YOURSELF… IT’S FUN.
But this is not the end, there is more to come in this story. More fishes, more dogs, more cats, more birds and many other wonderful animals so stay tuned for may.
And ,
I would really appreciate if you could comment, tweet or suggest anything for improvement in my blog.
Thanks.
Aquarium Fish