The passion for Aro

It was during the late weeks of December 2012, when my dad decided to clear the backyard of our home. It was then i noticed an old aquarium laying there without any purpose, except for taking up the storage space. A glimpse of memory flashes through my mind, on how when i was a little kid, my dad used to have a silver arowana (on a bigger tank), and how me and my dad used to go to the local fish shop, bought some mealworms, crickets and later baby frogs, and give it to the arowana for it to have a feast on. It was great, until a couple of years later when the grown up arowana (i think about 2 feet long) jumped out of the aquarium late at night, only for us to discover the dead fish in the morning on the carpet.



Immediately i feel like wanted to have my kids to have the same memory as mine, and so i decided to start a fish tank. So i asked my dad to let me have the small aquarium (3ft x 1.5ft x 2 ft) for me and my son to set up our aquarium and I was grateful that my dad even immediately went to the same local fish shop and bought us a brand new aquarium stand.

And so i managed to bring it home, so the next question would be, what kind of fish should i have in the tank? Without further a due, immediately my decision would be, an arowana. Before buying an arowana, i set the tank up first, put new filters on it, and bought baby carps ( 15 small carps for RM1 ) and put it on the aquarium. My kids were so excited for the fishes, that they'd even put a small chair in front of it to watch the small fishes swimming around.

A couple of weeks later, in the late days of 2012, so i've decided to have a "real fish" in the tank. The one that would be spectacular to watch, the one that will be with us for a long period of time, the one that would hopefully brings the memory of myself to my kids, a new addiction to our family. I was planning to have a silver arowana, as it was pretty cheap, and easy to manage. But upon discussion with my brother in law, he manages to convince me to have a better one instead.

And so off we went to a shop called "Arowana House" in Sri Gombak. We were there for almost a day, to decide which one would be "the one".

Shopping for an arowana at Arowana House.

 And so, finally, at the end of the day, we've decided to have a baby Malaysian Golden Crossback Blue Base. Some call it the Crossback Golden or XB (which stands for Cross Back). The size i think is about 5 inches, 2 months old at the time, and it retails at about RM800. Btw, the baby arowanas are kept at the back inside the white tanning tank. Those on the picture above are worth thousands of RMs. Just for my record keeping, it was on 28th December 2012. The baby aro comes with a microchip, and a certificate of authenticity, to prove that it was from a mentioned breed, which is useful IF i ever decided to sell the fish later on.

And so we bring back the baby aro, and so begins my life as an aquarist.

Just arrived.

Initial tank set-up. Notice how small that little guy in there? That's a 3 feet tank btw.

A bit grown up. Latest picture in the same tank on early Feb. Poor picture quality due to that the fish is so active, pretty hard for the phone camera to have a good focus.

I'll update on later posts on the tank setup, tanning, feedings, and other matters too if i have the time.