'Klondike', Golden Head Crossback Arowana

[islandguy11]

After considering a few similar level fish, as per my recent 24K Gold Fever! post I finally settled on this good looking little guy from a Malaysian farm, sourced by a fish dealer at Bangkok's famed Chatuchak Aquarium market.



I've named him (of course not sure on that point) 'Klondike' given the fever inspired during the search and acquisition, and also because I spent some great years growing up in Alaska.



He's about 10.5" now and referred to as a 'Golden Head Crossback Golden' on his certificate, but of course each farm uses their own marketing names for their different Arowana varieties.



He's from World of Dragon (MBI International) which I'm not sure but I think is kind of a medium tier farm. Another one I was comparing it to came from a more well-known farm (Sianlon) but finally I chose according to the fish I liked best rather than farm name.



He's currently not really a 100% full helmet or full cross yet, I'd say closer to 85-90%, but he's just taken a couple of flights in the last week, needs to get used to his new home and is still quite young, so we'll have to see how his genes plus my grooming efforts work out.



I chose not to put him in my 8' (375g) for a couple of different reasons and am currently keeping him in a 48" foot WTT tank (with a single 6500K LED light) -- it's sufficient for now, but not for long, so I have a 84"X32"X28" (325g) being made at a local shop now, it'll be finished and delivered in about 1.5 weeks but I might wait 2 or 3 months to transfer him over.

Thanks in advance for any input or advice on my journey to keep Klondike happy, healthy & handsome.

 

[narayanang76]

Great! Congratulations and good luck for an amazing fish and a new relationship.

 

[MariaS]

Congratulations islandguy11 , stunning baby
Wish you all the best

 

[islandguy11]

Great! Congratulations and good luck for an amazing fish and a new relationship.

Congratulations islandguy11 , stunning baby
Wish you all the best

Thanks a lot, and I'm sure I'll be tapping into both of your knowledge based on such good experience with nicely raised Arowana.

 

[islandguy11]

Here's an update on my GHXB, which for the record has been slightly renamed "Klondike Lightning', you'll see why in a future post. All pix taken under normal LED lighting (6500K daylight).



So he's doing great, though on his 2nd day in the tank he got spooked when I turned off a room light (his tank light was on), and hit his head on the tank cover. This scraped off a small line of gold on his head and knocked off his 3rd scale on his back. Was bummed about that (and have since kept external lighting very stable, just dimming his tank lights a bit during sleep time, he's calmed down a lot now and no further spookings over the last few weeks).

Good news is that both injuries are healing up very nicely and surprisingly quick, and in fact the new scale is coming back even more gold than it was. I'm not 100% sure they're the reason, but I've been using 2 good treatments, 'Wish Arowana Spa' (by Medfish, main ingredient is almond leaves extract), and also 'O' (by Ocean Free, it's a natural, herbal based broad spectrum treatment helpful in fighting and preventing many external/internal diseases and infection).



Dietary wise he's being very cooperative and has a great appetite: I've taken a kind of Pavlovian training approach to getting him onto a diet which I prefer for him: basically half pellets and half frozen foods. So what I do (once a day) is throw in a couple of pellets, he eats those -- thereby earning a couple of pieces of frozen food -- then repeat and repeat like this until I see he's getting a bit full. It's more time consuming compared to just throwing in a bunch of food but a) it works (at least for now; we all know how whimsical these fish can be), and b) it's kind of a bonding experience for us and he for sure knows where his food is coming from.

He much prefers that his pellets are soaked, he doesn't really like chewing anything. He's currently eating (in order of preference) Hikari Food Sticks + Sianlon Gold + Ocean Free's AR-G2. I think he likes the Hikari best because it softens up the fastest).

For frozen food (also in order of preference) he's eating small ghost shrimp + prawns + white fish, with the latter 2 cut into very small pieces.



Finally for now, about a week ago I moved him into his new 7 ft, 325 gallon tank (currently with WTT for maybe 3-6 months more) and he seems very happy -- he's confidently swimming the entirety of the tank and not holing up in a corner, despite the size difference from the 88 gallon temporary tank he was in. After New Year's though I will likely put in a juvie Flagtail to help with tank maintenance and to keep him company.



Hoping everyone and their pets has a great 2019!

 

[RD.]

Beautiful aro, Barrett! Best of luck with him, sounds liike you have already gotten him off to an excellent start.

 

[islandguy11]

Beautiful aro, Barrett! Best of luck with him, sounds liike you have already gotten him off to an excellent start.

Thanks Neil, overall quality of Asian Arowana has risen steadily over the years from what I can see and it's really not hard to find a good quality fish for much less than in the 'old days', the farms have been very successful in their breeding efforts so a lot of nice fish out there and it's mostly a buyer's market.

 

[M3AN ONE]

What brand of lighting are you using

 

[Dloks]

I like Dloks Jr better! Take care of my fish while I’m in the army! Lol if I’m stationed where you’re at! We might have a justifiable case of fish napping! Beautiful fish my white asian brotha!

 

[islandguy11]

What brand of lighting are you using

Just regular household led lights (waterproof), 6500K, clear daylight. If I used warm white lights he'd look twice as golden. These were quite cheap, the larger 36w fixture was only the equivalent of about US$15, the 18w about $10. Frankly though they're kinda too bright, so most of the time I have them tilted more to the side, it's enough for this 28" deep tank.