Before I start, I would like to wish all my chinese readers a Roaring Tiger Year ahead and I wish you and your family all the best in the coming year. And also, try not to eat too much like me. lol I really need to go on a diet after all the good food. ;-(

Anyway I would like to share a story with you from one of my readers. (It is reproduced verbatim below)
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Hi Steven

I brought 3 Arowanas in my fish tank about 2 weeks back. 2 of them did not eat the food except the live fish, whenever given. One arowana was okay with having feed as well as live fish.
but for past 2-3 days, the arowanas were not acting normal. they reduced their movements, rather like to stay idle. I thought that they might be hungry so I brought live fish for them. Probably all of them had eaten them.
But yesterday, one of them firstly started swimming down the water, subsequently remained with its head down. and others too were not active, one of them was getting its tail downwards, and both remained inactive while staying idle on the corners of the tank on the top.
i gave medicine (tetracyclin and another anti-biotic for gastric disorder) and increased the temperature to 28 degrees, and about 2 hours later of medication, I changed over 25% of water maintaining the same temperature. thereafter i increased the water temperature to 30 degrees.
in the meanwhile, i could see a change in other 2 arowanas but the one with head dipping downwards had a little improvement.
but today morning the arowana with head dipping downwards, dies. alas!
on inspection, i could find that the surviving arowanas, although they are better in their movements, but they have lost their color and texture and the fins are also broken. and one of them is still having tail tilting downwards.
I am really attached with arowanas, last year also i lost 2 of my arowanas.
please suggest me the remedy
regards

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Some observations here that will help you manage your beloved arowanas better.

1) Everytime, when you sense that something is not right with your arowanas, the first thing you do is change the water! Don't have to think ok about what to do…. just change the water. Again change a maximum of 20-25% maximum each time. Also do not change everyday but every other day if needed. (I'm assuming that you are using tap water.) You do not need anti-chlorine as it is only 20% change in water. I have never used anti-chlorine in any of my water changes.
The problem I see is that many hobbyist procrastinate in changing water and hoping for the best. Do not wait for another day but change the water ASAP once you detect some anomaly in the behaviour of your arowana.

2) Medication should be used 'sparingly' and should NEVER be your first action plan. I have never used medication at all for my 5 cross-backs in my tank. (3 years now) I make it a point to change water every 2 weeks or so with additions of salt and black water everytime I change it.

3) When your arowanas have problems, I also see many hobbyist feeding them more food thinking that they are hungry. This is more often than not, the wrong deduction and definite the wrong thing to do. Your arowana being sick is 99% caused by the condition of the water. When you add more live food into it, you are increasing the waste in the water (your live food also produces waste) which makes the water more polluted than before. If you have sick fishes, avoid feeding them for a few days until you have done the necessary.

Hope the information above has given you a better insight into what actions to take when you see problems. Cheers!

Hi all,
I guess it's been a challenging year for everyone especially me. I hope that with the coming of the new year, 2010, things will start to look up for most, if not all of us!
Have not been blogging much this year I must add but hope to spend a bit more time here in 2010.

HOWEVER, keep your questions coming to my email address (steven@arowana-care.com) as I will continue to answer all your personal questions. However, moving forward, if I find your questions can benefit the wider arowana hobbyist community, I will post it here on the blog.

Again, have a Great Christmas day and 2010 ahead. May the new year usher in health, wealth and personal prosperity to all.
Cheers and take care.
Steven

Hi all,
I had a call about 2 weeks back from someone from Myanmar who wanted to setup a breeding farm there. They were in Singapore for just a few days and since they came all the way to meet me, I could not say no to a meeting with them. Anyway I met a nice old gentlemen with his son who wanted to know how to setup a breeding farm in Myanmar.

They already had 2 ponds breeding green arowanas and they wanted to venture out into reds and xback golds as well. Just out of curiosity, I asked them how much they could sell green arowanas for in Myanmar.. and they said about US$800 per fish! Man! that is a damn good price for greens.

They were looking for someone to help them with the setup as well as enquire about certain techniques to increase their yield. They were getting about 100+ babies a year which I thought was pretty good for 2 ponds.

Anyway, where I'm going with this are the following facts.. I am just reiterating what I wrote in another post but I think it is worth mentioning again if anyone is thinking of giving this a try..
Best to do this with a question/answer format :-

Q - Can asian arowanas (reds, xbacks, RTGS) be bred in other asian countries other than Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore?
Ans - No one has succeeded yet! My advise is, DON'T TRY unless you are playing with excess money as it is not cheap to start such a venture. (I don't mind if you throw some my way! ;-)) The chances of success is slim. But again, who knows right? You could be the first!

Q - The climate, soil and water is very similar in my country. I should be able to breed them right?
Ans - Well.. if you go by that logic, then probably yes BUT some investors have tried in Thailand but without success. If you go by similarities, then I think Thailand is the closest to Malaysia and Singapore but yet, they have failed to breed them there. I personally think that there are subtle differences in the soil and water makeup that we cannot really differentiate.

Q - How many ponds would I need to even start this investment with?
Ans - Ok.. So you still want to try this out inspite of my frank assessment. (Ok you have some spare chump change to throw! ;-)) What you need to realize is that you will need as many ponds as you can build and fill up, bearing in mind that not all ponds will be productive. Some ponds will be very productive and probably give you a mouthful of fry every 3-4 months and others every 6 months or so and yet others NEVER! For those ponds that have very little yield, you will have to mix them again to increase the chance of the new mix breeding.

Every pond should have at least 20-25 adult fishes to start off with. Xbacks and RTGs can start to breed when about 3+ years while reds will take a bit longer about 4+ years.

I hope that this has given you a good overview on this subject. Drop me a line in this blog if you have any more queries on this very interesting topic.

Cheers!
Steven