Red Tail Golden Arowana (RTG)

RTG Arowana or Red Tail Golden Arowana sc. Scleropages formosus:

The Red Tail golden arowana is one of the most sought after arowana breed world wide. Before we progress further in this post let us call Red tail golden arowana as simply the RTG arowana. This breed is the stepping stone in the world of exotic arowanas. As you can imagine silver arowana, Jardini arowana and green arowana are more common in our circle of arowana keepers.

RTG tank requirements:

This has been discussed in the past several times. For a very quick explanation let me give you some details.

Looking at the natural habitat of Asian arowana we can very easily conclude that they will need a big tank to survive for long. It will need at least a 8 feet long 4 feet wide and 4 feet tall tank when adult. In the mean time you can start with a small tank and slowly graduate to a larger tank. But, in doing so, please remember not to make your fish live in a cramped environment.

All the time a juvenile must have a large space to swim. A tank with 5 times the length of the fish will be sufficient, for instance.

RTG arowana fish food:

This i have also discussed several times earlier in my other posts. Here I will give you a very brief account on what to feed and when to feed and how much to feed. Fresh food is best for any living organism, for instance. Rather, I should say close to natural food available in the wild.

So, In the wild Asian arowana eat a variety of food and that too is fresh live food. They eat insects, small amphibians, small reptiles, fishes and rodents that can fit their mouth and several other readily available organisms in their natural habitat.

So, what you can do? you can give them all of the above options which might be available at your local pet shop. You can also feed them chicken and lamb meat. A new trend is feeding live black solider fly larva is settling in. Live fishes are also a good option. And its better to include a wide variety of feeder fish. There is a wide variety of commercial dry food also available.

Precautions in keeping Arowana:

This is common for all arowana breeds. Arowana are fresh water fish that live in either fresh water ponds and lakes or in slow moving parts of rivers. So, they need a constant supply of fresh water. You have to maintain water quality, for instance, if you wish for a healthy long living arowana.

It is recommended that a 10% water change can be applied in every three days. If it is too much of a commitment for you, you can extend this period by a week. But, not more than that. You can make a 30% water change every month.

You can relate this much quantity of water change with the large size of tank requirement for this fish. Also a change in water more than that will put the fish in a lot of stress.