Arowana Fish Breeding New Video - Newborn Arowana Baby
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The Golden Arowana is the most popular and expensive ornamental fish native to Malaysia. The best quality is the crossed-back full-scale Arowana is the Malaysian Golden Arowana. This variety only occurs in Bukit Merah Lake in the state of Perak, Malaysia. In its natural habitat breeding season normally occurs from August to October every year. During the season village, folk from around the lake will try to collect the valuable fry at night.
There are two varieties of Arowana that commonly inhabit Malaysian water bodies; a golden variety and a green variety. The green variety is more common and less expensive compared to the golden variety, which sells at a premium. The crossed-back Golden Arowana commonly inhabits the Kerian River and its tributaries in Perak. In its natural habitat, the fish prefer slightly acidic clean water and unpolluted natural surroundings, especially shallow and fast flowing rivers with overhanging vegetation on the river bank.
Due to the high price of the golden variety, the Freshwater Fisheries Research Station (FFRC) started with a few individuals of the wild catch for brood stock. The wild fish were acquired from traditional fish collectors at Bukit Merah Lake in 1990. In 1996 FFRC was fortunate to successfully breed the Malaysian Golden Arowana in concrete tanks on the first attempt.
The male fertilizes the eggs and then scoops them into its mouth where it incubates them until the fry can swim and survive independently. The eggs are about 8 -10 mm in diameter and rich with yolk and hatch about one week after fertilization. After hatching, the young larvae continue to live in the male's mouth for a further 7 - 8 weeks until the yolk sac is totally absorbed. The fry leaves the mouth and becomes independent when they reach about 4550mm.
IDENTIFYING A BROODING MALE
After mating a brooding male can be identified by a distended operculum and its swimming behavior. They don't seem to feed and look more placid than at other times. A brooding male can also be recognized by a remarkable brood pouch located on the underside of its mouth.
FRY HARVEST
The incubation period (time from fertilization until the fry are released) is normally about 8 weeks. To shorten the period the fertilized eggs can be hand removed from the male's mouth on the 30th day after spawning. The brooding male should be carefully caught with a fine net and covered with a wet cotton towel to avoid injury and struggling.
The lower jaw of the fish is pulled backward slowly, and the body is shaken slightly to release the half developed larvae from the male's mouth. The larvae are collected in a plastic basin and incubated in an aquarium. The number of the fertilized eggs collected in a single brood is usually about 20 - 35 larvae.
HATCHING TECHNIQUE
Once removed from the male's mouth, the half-developed larvae are incubated in glass aquarium tanks, measuring 90 x 45 x 45 cm. Water temperature is kept around 27 - 29°C using a thermostat heater and dissolved oxygen is maintained at about 5 ppm (mg/l) through continuous gentle aeration of the water. We generally add about 2 ppm of Acriflavine solution to the water to prevent infection of any injuries suffered by the larvae during handling. Using this in vitro hatching technique, the survival rate for free swimming stage is generally about 90 - 100%.
During the first few weeks when the larvae still have a large yolk sac, they tend to remain at the bottom of the tank most of the time. The fry starts to swim upward periodically when the yolk sac becomes smaller. On the 8th week, the yolk sac is nearly fully absorbed, and the fry starts to swim horizontally. At this stage, the first live food should be given to the fry. The yolk sac is fully absorbed, and the fry becomes free- swimming at about 8.5cm in length.
MAINTENANCE OF FRY
During the incubation period, the fry does not need to be fed. The fry will swim freely on the 7th week. Supplementary external live feed such as young guppies or bloodworm can be given at the early free-swimming stage to prevent the fry from attacking each other. The fry is very vigorous feeders and should be provided with ample supply of feed. We recommend a partial water change of about 30% of total tank volume every 2- 3 days to maintain water quality.
Bigger fry of about 10 -12cm in length can be fed with freshwater prawn or chopped fish meat to accelerate their growth rate. At 4 months in age, we rear fingerlings individually in 75 x 45 x 45cm aquariums to avoid physical defects from fighting with siblings. To enhance the color and promote the formation of chromatophores we suggest to illuminate with artificial lighting at least 10 -12 hours a day. After 6 -7 months of free-swimming the fry measure about 20 -25cm in length and are suitable for market.
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