Super Red Asian Arowana Breeder

[CheckJr]

CheckJr,
Thanks for your PM but I am not really sure what to tell you..... I dont doubt you have an Aro farm but there are some questions arising. I mean sexing from physical differences and behaviour should be simple to anyone experienced or who keeps fish to commercially breed. Especially when you have so many large adults to compare. Dont you watch these fish daily? I do realise they are in a pond. For example, I dont keep Asian Aro (S. formosus) but I do keep and breed S. leichardi - or rather they breed for me since I dont go out of my way to breed them specifically - and they arent that hard for me to sex and are also quite easy to gently squeeze for milt. Cannulation is also a very straightforward & common aquaculture technique but if you are afraid to even squeeze your fish then this is not for you either. Most farm would have some inferior grade stock they can safely trial on too so again I am at a loss with your answer or how to help you.

I have uploaded an aquaculture article describing tank breeding of S. formosa for you. I cant link you directly to the site since theres an aquaculture membership requirement for access unfortunately. Please download asap since I dont know how long the files are kept at this mirror site.

http://sharedzilla.com/en/get?id=100995

Fishdance,
I do watch them weekly (since the farm is located around 4 hours drive from the city). I used to stay in the farm for weeks to observe them. It's very difficult to see when they're in the ponds because the water is not clear. So we put them in the tanks to observe better. I admit that I'm still a beginner in this breeding business (only 5 years experience). However, the difficulty in sexing Super Red (SR) Arowana is such that even breeders with 15+ years experience could not distinguish male / female for certain. There are, of course, 'theories' by certain individuals for example: lower jawline (male), slimmer body (male), longer fins (male), etc. But they are not 100%. Not even close to 60%. You might want to ask other SR breeders for references.

There was this guy (I don't want to name names) who supposedly really good in sexing SR. Buyers from overseas often pay for his advise. I don't know how the legend grew. Basically, everyone in the business would have heard of his name, one way or the other. Then last year, we had a really bad dry season and suddenly on one unfortunate night it rained very heavily. Many of the fishes (hundreds of them) in the ponds died all of a sudden due to the sudden change in ph water level. I won't tell you how many that we lost that night . Anyway, to prove his theory, the guy was asked by one of the breeder to come and identify the dead fishes (less than 1 hr after the incident). The result? He was correct less than half of the time.

As for the canulation, like you mentioned, I want to try it first to the fishes with birth defects since lower quality SR still worth thousands of dollars. Thanks for the links.

 

[CheckJr]

They are about 6-7 inches....1500USD for a red is not that acceptable. But if it is in third world countries and comparing to canada, I guess Canadians (asian hobbyist) are really not that wealthy to spend 1500USD on a fish.

And don't super reds are about $1000 Singapore money? or at least xback. Whats considered normal as you mention in local are probably extremely high quality that can be seen in 6-7 inchs large that would cost an approximate of
2200 SDG for a super red?

Luckly theres a group buy services in Canada and its picking up market shares and luckly they import 6-7 inchs reds for 1350 CDN including all shipping/tax and legal fees from Panda.

Also your pics on the red is nice, would you mind showing it in white light to show the true colours of the red?

Hatorihanzoe,
When I said USD 1500 for a super red (in the local market), it's certainly not for a normal 6-7 inches ones. A few with special characteristics might go for that price though. That's why I asked you about the age and size.

As for the pics, all the tanks for SR Arowana are usually equipped with UV light to better enhance the colour of the fish. But I can assure you that even with the most expensive UV light, a lower quality SR would not look nice.

For a group buy of 20 or more, I certainly can give more competitive price. PM me if you are interested. It doesn't seem ethical to post our price here

 

[CheckJr]

pardon my asian aro ignorance, but, do super reds occur naturally in the wild (specifically, the kapuas river in kalimantan, indonesia)? and since Scleropages formosus had been separated into several new species, what species of Scleropages is the super red? TIA.
(i'd also want to know what species the green asian aro is)

Sauroid,
I can't answer the technical and scientific question, but yes.. Super reds occur naturally in Kapuas River in West Kalimantan, Indonesia. The name of the origin is Kapuas Hulu. There are other species as well in our region, but since the price of SR goes much higher than the others, very few would go into breeding others.

 

[fishdance]

CheckJr,
I think your looking of for absolutes wich is rare in the fish breeding world. There are no absolutes even if you can reliably sex fish. I am confident your better at sexing fish than you realise. What that video doesnt show is how they got to the final breeding pair. Perhaps they were pond kept until the pair bond behaviour started? Perhaps they kept 8 fish together and slowly removed any incompatable fish? Perhaps they achieved pair bonding with a clear tank divider first? You have the luxury of being able to try many different ways. I would stick to pond culture over tank culture personally though since ponds get much better results with less work.

 

[CheckJr]

How many aros are you producing on your farm?

Raskal311,
we can't say for certain the number of aros that we are producing (not that we don't want to tell you, but we don't know for sure as the number varies quite significantly). But let me give you a rough idea: each male fish can hold as little as 3 frys and as much as 90 frys (that's the maximum that ever occurred in our farm and only for a few times, some claimed that theirs can go as high as 150). The harvest occurs every 2 or 3 months, and in each harvest only 2-5 fishes (5 if very lucky, in my case). We have a total of 20 ponds. So please do the math yourself

 

[CheckJr]

CheckJr,
I think your looking of for absolutes wich is rare in the fish breeding world. There are no absolutes even if you can reliably sex fish. I am confident your better at sexing fish than you realise. What that video doesnt show is how they got to the final breeding pair. Perhaps they were pond kept until the pair bond behaviour started? Perhaps they kept 8 fish together and slowly removed any incompatable fish? Perhaps they achieved pair bonding with a clear tank divider first? You have the luxury of being able to try many different ways. I would stick to pond culture over tank culture personally though since ponds get much better results with less work.

Fishdance,
I think what you said make a lot of sense. Guess I was hanging on to a false hope of finding a secret way to distinguish them. We know of a pair when we see them swimming together most of the time. But we could not distinguish them physically. Has anyone heard of X-Ray or thermal goggle used in sexing fish? Cause I heard some guy mentioned it the other day...

 

[b-man]

checkjr: what farm are you currently working with?

 

[castbug]

Hi ... This is my first post so please go easy on me..
I'm an Arowana breeder in West Kalimantan, Indonesia. If you are an Asian Arowana fan (especially the Super Red type), you would know that those type of Arowana are originated from and only available in the wild in West Kalimantan, Indonesia. Yup, that's rite where I'm from.. If you see Super Red Arowana in other places, then their parents or grandparents or great grandparents were from my hometown. Most often they were bought by Singaporeans, and I know that there are at least 2 Arowana farms there. This is no ads, but please believe me when I tell you that nothing beats the original since they preserve the original habitats and using the same water as those in the wild.

I joined this forum after I saw a video in YouTube (Amazing Arowana Breeding Caught on Cam
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ltmk6oHXg8) and followed the link from one of the comments
I was very surprised to see that Arowana could be bred in the tank. The guy who owned the fishes must be EXTREMELY LUCKY to be able to get a pair in the tank or he/she got ways to identify male/female Arowana and I would really love to get a pointer or two. Here we already knew (proven and tried) that jawline, fins, body shape are not reliable.

Let me give you a rough idea about our farm: we have several ponds and the size of each pond is 40 m x 10 m x 1.5 m (l x w x d). We usually place around 40 Arowanas (the youngest being 4 yrs. old and oldest around 7 yrs. old), into each pond and then basically pray for the best . From the 5 years experience, the worst case is 0 for the whole 2 years, at which we remove all the Arowanas from that godforsaken pond and mix n match them with other less successful ones. Now you know why I said the owner of the tank are extremely lucky or had some secrets. 0 results from 40 arowanas means that all of them are of the same gender And we had this experience 3 TIMES. (For those who, at this point, think that they are not old enough to mate, asian arowana starts breeding at around 3 yo, so ours are more than ready.. trust me) This also happens to other farms as well and there are many of them with similar case.

So if anyone has similar stories as the one posted in YouTube or you are the owner of that particular video, my question is:
1. What's your secret and do you mind sharing it with the rest of us?
2. Do you have any more videos of those fishes after the breeding that can distinguish male/female as the video is very short?

I'm sorry if this post is too long and bores you.. But please remember that this is my first post..

Cheers

Hi, nice pictures of your farm. May i know the name of your farm. Would love to go to Kalimantan to see your farm.

 

[CheckJr]

We are newly established and working under our parent company : PT. Wajok Inti Lestari. Our own farm called : Kowloon Fish

 

[castbug]

We are newly established and working under our parent company : PT. Wajok Inti Lestari. Our own farm called : Kowloon Fish

I c. yup no wonder when i saw the pictures of your farm they kinda looked abit similar to those pictures i saw in Indo dragon. Nice farm and good luck with the breeding. I am kinda like a small time arowana breeder myself.