Ok .. now back to the topic…
When the arowanas are brought home, you should put the plastic bags with the fishes into the tank. This is to allow the temperature in the bags to approach that of the tank water.. If the water temperature is too much, this will stresss your fish unnecessarily. So be patience with this step. I usually leave the bags in for about 30 min to allow thiis to happen.

After this, slowly open up the bags and fill them up with the water (everytime with a single scoop or two of water into the bags) from the tank. Do this several times until the bags are almost full of water. Should be an interval of about 20 minutes or so between each time. This is also to help 'equalize' the water.
Look at the four photos below to get an idea…

Your arowanas can be a bit jumpy when they are in a new environment.. so don't get too worried. They will probably also not eat for the first couple of days. ALL THIS IS NORMAL OK…. So don't go pulling out your hair worrying about something normal..

Below here are my new golden babies in their new tank.. Enjoy and take care!

This farm that I'm involved with has been producing some excellent quality arowanas which I'm proud to share with you. Some of the arowanas really look like gold bars! I just brought 3 gold arowanas home yesterday actually!

I'll share with you in the next blog post on how to bring new arowanas home and put into your tanks. This should be another interesting post for those buying new ones soon.

Nice eh? If you are interested, you can write to sales@panglong.com.sg . If you are in Singapore, I would also suggest that you go down to the farm to have a look.

For those looking for red arowanas, unfortunately we don't have many as they are much harder to breed. IMHO, good reds are mostly from Indonesia. Malaysia and Singapore have a harder time breeding them.

What happened was my wife wanted me to move my tank to another location in our house and of course I could not just lift it up and carry it right.. I could have said no to my wife but thought better as she would probably nag me until I did it anyway. Sigh! So anyway, I decided to do it ASAP. As I did not have a spare tank in my house, I decided to move my 5 crossbacks to the farm so that I could drain the tank and move it to the new location.

I'll be frank here… There are not really any hard and fast rules as to how to move your arowana to a new tank/location. But what I'll be describing below will definitely give you an idea on how it's done if you ever needed to do it yourself.

HOWEVER here is my advise ok… if you have just one arowana, then I think you can probably do it yourself but if you have more than one, maybe it would be better to get some professional help to move them. You really do not want to stress out your arowanas unnecessarily. Trust me on this!

So anyway, let's get started with the move ok… ENJOY!!!

1) The below are probably the only equipment that you would need to do the job. A styrofam box, STRONG plastic bags and fish stabilizer. The fish stabilizer is to make your arowana a bit drowsy so that it would become 'calmer' and not struggle too much when you try to guide it into the plastic bag.

2) Example of a fish stabilizer …

3) Ok before you start, it would make sense to drain a bit of water from the tank. This is in case your arowana becomes a bit excited and jumpy… You don't want it to accidentally jump out of the tank while you are trying to move it do you?

4) After draining some water, put a bit of the fish stabilizer into the tank to calm the fish down. Be mindful that this is potent stuff ok.. so use sparingly… Read the instructions on the bottle.

5) Put the plastic bag into the water and guide the arowana into the bag. Do not try and force the arowana into the bag as this can cause it to become very agitated and jump around and injure itself.

6) Before you tie up the plastic bag for transport, do put in a drop of the fish stabilizer to calm it down for the transport to another location. (Only needed if the distance is far enough and in this case is to the farm.)

7) Putting the arowanas into the tank in the farm. What you should do is put the entire bag into the water first for about 30mins. After which, open the bag and slowly mix the tank water with the bag water before slowly releasing the arowana into the tank.

Ok hope you enjoyed the above 'move'. Do share if you have any other methods. Oh by the way, some people also oxygenate the bags before they tie up the bag for transport but I think it might not be needed if the distance is short. Like I said… no hard and fast rules to follow but some people do take additional steps… Cheers and take care…

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!

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

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

Oh yes.. before I forget… the Aquarama 2009 Goldfish Grand Champion is in video 6 here !!! But poor fish… I think because it was so big and fat, it could not move much when I was taking the video!

1) Ranchu – Category B Class 1

2) Pearl Scaled Varieties – Category B Class 2

3) Oranda – Category B Class 3

4) Dragon Eye – Category B Class 4

5) Ryukin – Long Caudal Fin (Tail) – Category B Class 5

6) Ryukin – Short Caudal Fin (Tail) – Category B Class 6 (Goldfish Grand Champion is in this category)

7) Open – Any Variety – Category B Class 7

There are 14 videos so I will give you the 1st 7 here for category A. (smaller goldfishes)

1) Ranchu – Category A Class 1

2) Pearl Scaled Varieties – Category A Class 2

3) Oranda – Category A Class 3

4) Dragon Eye – Category A Class 4

5) Ryukin – Long Caudal Fin (Tail) – Category A Class 5

6) Ryukin – Short Caudal Fin (Tail) – Category A Class 6

7) Open – Any Variety – Category A Class 7

BUT BUT ZE GRAND CHAMPION WAS A GOOD OL RED AROWANA!!!!

Ok ok without further ado, here they are! ENJOY!!!!

1) Small RED Arowanas Category …

2) Small GOLDEN Arowanas Category …

3) Small OPEN Arowanas Category …

4) Large RED Arowanas Category (Grand Champion is here! What a RED!!!) …

5) Large GOLDEN Arowanas Category …

6) Large OPEN Arowanas Category …

Hope you like what you saw above. Let your friends know if they're keen to see the winners.

Later on I'll publish some nice goldfish videos here as well. Have taken the videos of the winners already but have yet to edit them. Will find some time.

Anyway cheers to everyone and take care! FISH POWER TO ALL!

Hi all,
Aquarama 2009 is finally here! It's been a 2 year wait but I think it'll be worth it! Drop by the Suntec Exhibition Centre in Singapore if you can! I think it's the largest aquarium show in Asia and should not be missed if you can make it here for this coming weekend. Starts on the 28th and ends on the 31st May.

Get your bi-annual dose of fish (arowanas, goldfish, discus, etc.) competitions, fish, fish and more fish! You will have fish coming out of your ears by the end of the week!

I'll try and take as much photos and videos as I can on the 28th and 29th and post it on my blog here. Unfortunately I'm going to be away overseas from the weekend onwards and will miss the large crowd that's expected to turn up for the weekend. I think it's going to be CRAAAZZZZYYY during the weekend .. As I said, do attend if you're in the neighbourhood! Many many cheap budget flights nowadays to Singapore. No excuse ya!

Ok cheerio and have a good weekend!