Many fish lovers are baffled when their arowana has a low appetite during rearing. There are many factors that affect an arowana’s appetite, including water quality, environmental factors, and individual reasons. So, let me share some methods to keep your arowana’s appetite up.
How to Keep Your Arowana’s Appetite High
An arowana’s appetite varies from fish to fish due to genetic factors, which we can’t change. Besides that, water quality and environmental factors can also impact their appetite. To keep your arowana eating well, you should pay attention to the following points:
1. Create stable and excellent water quality.
While raising your arowana, it’s recommended to set up a complete nitrification system in the tank, change the water regularly, and keep the temperature consistent to maintain good water quality and prevent big fluctuations. This is the basic condition for keeping your arowana’s appetite up.
For juvenile arowanas, besides maintaining good water quality, you should also keep up a higher frequency of water changes and maintain a higher water temperature. It’s suggested to change 1/5 to 1/4 of the water every week and keep the temperature above 30°C (86°F) to stimulate their appetite, encouraging them to eat more and grow faster. But be careful not to change too much water at once to avoid drastic changes in water quality that could upset their stomachs and make them refuse food.
During the mid-growth stage—which is a crucial time for their coloration—you can lower the water temperature a bit and extend the intervals between water changes, reduce the amount of water changed, and lower the pH to promote their color development. At this stage, you can keep the water temperature around 29-30°C (84-86°F) and bring the pH down below 7. Just make sure to adjust things slowly to prevent big changes in water quality that could make your arowana stop eating or cause other more serious issues.
2. Keep the environment stable.
Arowanas are really sensitive to changes in their environment, especially when they’re young. While you’re raising them, make sure to keep both the inside and outside of the tank stable. A steady environment can help prevent your arowana from feeling stressed out, which helps keep their appetite up. Also, try to avoid unnecessary disturbances—don’t scare them or cause them too much stress.
3. Create some competition.
When an arowana is kept alone, there’s no other fish to compete for food, so they don’t have a sense of urgency about eating and might have a low appetite. Arowanas often eat more and grow faster when kept with other fish. So, it’s a good idea to have them in a community tank. This not only stimulates their competitive drive for food, keeping their appetite high, but also helps reduce environmental stress, which is great for maintaining their appetite.
4. Increase their activity.
When your arowana reaches about 15 cm (6 inches), it’s the best time to boost their appetite. Once they’ve settled into the tank, you can use some feeding methods and tricks to get them eating more—for example, feeding them easily digestible small fish. You can also increase the water flow to boost their activity level, which helps burn energy and makes them hungrier.
At this stage, you can feed them 2-4 times a day and increase the amount a bit. Keep this feeding routine for about a month to stretch their stomach and get their appetite going. After that, you can gradually reduce the feeding amount, and just feed them until they’re about 70-80% full each time.
5. Mix up their diet and ensure balanced nutrition.
You should adjust your arowana’s food from time to time to avoid feeding them the same thing over and over. Also, make sure to adjust their diet according to their nutritional needs at different stages. For young arowanas, you can make fish and shrimp their main food and basically skip insects. But no matter what, you should periodically change up their food to prevent them from getting bored with a single type of food, which can lead to them refusing to eat.
That’s all for the methods and tips I’ve shared to keep your arowana’s appetite up. I hope this helps you fish lovers with the problem of your arowana refusing to eat.
