Arowana pair for life?
 

Do arowanas pair for life? or do they keep on changing pair?
can you keep a pair together in pond ? or will they separate at some point?
example when you get a pair from a pond of arowanas, is it a good idea to separate them and keep them by themselves?

Arowana pair for life?
 

Err... sort of... they practice polyamory. One male will pair with 2-3 females max for life assuming they are restricted in a small pond size for life. If u r thinking albatross flying around the world for life no... but when restricted aros love only a distinct few... the same few in a restricted environment. Females may have 2 or 3 suitors too... like amongst 10-20.

No... they dun keep changing pair... they love only a few.

Yes... they can be kept as pair in pond... even in fish tank.

Yes... they will separate at some point. Not becos of love but becos by necessity... cos procreation waits for no aro. I.e., lover male no.1 already holding lover female no. 2 eggs... so lover female no. 1 goes looking for lover male no. 2 if he's available or is in a condition to starve for 2 months brooding eggs in its mouth. If not lover male no. 2 she goes looking for lover male no. 3. If lover male no. 3 not available how?... She waits... and wun go fking any other male not classified as lover status. Actually the opposite is true... males are always ready... like everything thing else in the animal kingdom... males chase skirts... but in this instance just that 2-3 skirts... not all skirts.

U can keep a pair by itself... pond or tank.

thank you bro :) really appreciate it.

Arowana pair for life?
 

U understand polyamory, right?

Assuming there's 5 fully competent Johns and 5 always gravid Marys.

John 1 brood eggs with Mary 1, 2 and 3.

John 2 brood with Mary 1, 3 and 5.

John 3 brood with Mary 1, 2 and 4.

John 4 brood with Mary 2, 3 and 4.

John 5 brood with Mary 4 and 5.

So...

Mary 1 has 3 lovers John 1, 2 and 3.

Mary 2 has 3 lovers John 1, 3 and 4.

So on and so forth.

Now, Marys 1 and 2 share their love with Johns 1 and 3 but not Johns 2 and 4. While Mary 3 also loves John 1... she will never sleep with Johns 3 and 5.

Expand that to 30 males and 30 females in a restricted pond still it will be only 2 or 3 lovers for each aro... no matter what sex... will be able to deal with... for love and for continuity.

thanks bro :) Undertsood :)
btw so its ok to have 2 males and a few females in the pond?
both males will be able to breed with the females?

Err... ur second question tells me u still blur. Wait...

Arowana pair for life?
 

Maybe one male will mate with a girl... and the other male will squeeze 3.

The science i looked at is not comprehensive enough... very small sample size and poor replication. But if u look at their biology u can guess a few things... 1, males brood for 2 months thereabouts... can he brood 6 times a year? Very unlikely... not to mention seasonal variations especially considering animals are not suppose to be stupid they wun breed when they know food supply for their babies is going to be a problem. 2, how long does it take a set of female gonads to mature? Well... ladies produce big eggs and would need time invested to get them eggs big enough... age dependent also. I project 2-3 months per gonad set so... max 4 times a year. Factor in seasons 3 max.

Mate choice. So... let's forget males for now assuming they chase every skirt around. If u r a female and u decided u love a particular male when her eggs go down and up his throat she stays with him for a few days. If this male chokes or starts eating her eggs u think she wants him for a lover? No obviously. Not steady... sperm not strong... fker... things like that. The question can also be asked the other way... if the male is a super strong mouth brooder carrying her eggs through thick and thin u think she will forget him? Again, no... obviously. Mate choice ofcos is going to be much more complex becos men r just not as smart as we think we r.

So... will both males chase after the females u wanna put in a pond... that's ur question. My answer? Very many... too complex to answer. Assuming everything in place... heaven sky earth energy brain power TLC watnot... all there... nothing missing... a typical male can afford to go hungry at 2 month stretches for say 3 times a year... on-off starving... assuming he so gung-ho... and ur other females like him by some mate choice selection criteria we men dun understand and may never understand. For a typical female... she can theoretically spawn 4 times a year... assuming she's either stupid or too darn smart knowing we men will make food available to her kids no matter what season and weather.

If u wanna learn more about aro spawning perhaps doing it in a tank would be better. More control... questions can be answered taking out variables... this that u learn more that way. Why need pond? Forget pond... unless u have it in ur balcony... and u can see and understand more.

Or... r u getting ahead of urself? Hahaha...

Thanks for all the info.
This caught my attention. I was told and also personally noticed most breeding arowanas are skinny as bamboo because they are seldom fed. The reasons they give is fish too fat cannot/dont want to breed.
(I disagree). Wouldn't the fish be more willing to breed if there's abundant food?

Will their production actually increase (cost aside) if they feed their breeding stocks adequately (same fish, same water quality , environment) ?

great info! :D

What u felt and others have too... is not completely unfounded. Bamboo thin fish wants to breed can possibly be explained with a few reasons.

Mate choice we discussed.

Fish too fat dun breed unlikely. Water too dirty dun breed more likely, dun u think? Feed too much water dirty brood eggs also die what's the point? U would agree most of us keep aros in unnaturally restricted environments. No matter what sort of fantasies we portrayed ourselves to be we r just not that fantastic.

Dominance hierarchy. Have u come across people telling u they have super males... males that always hold eggs year in year out 3-4 times a year kinda alpha male? That's hierarchy. And I have heard enough from local farmers to realise that it may very well occur in those small little ponds of ours... be it 20 or 2000 cube meters. Well... this plays a huge role in mating behavior... and therefore mate choice too.

Survival as a species. When some living things are dying... or when they think they are going to die in a known projected time frame... they propagate... in order to ensure species survival. I'm not sure if all living things possess this survival mechanism... I will not be surprise if many do have it... when science as we know today is just a baby compared to ecological times. Will aro trigger spawn knowing they are going to die? Err... with a mother's last burst of energy to eject eggs and a father's last bit of liver fat to ensure eggs are properly brooded when release from his dying mouth hopefully some would survive eating mosquitoe larvae and from there wait for times to hopefully become better and better? We dun know enough.

On to ur last question... controlled starvation is not going to work as a business model simply becos u r just not fully optimizing ur time and space. Feed more get more... ofcos! But what happens after feeling more?... Water condition, space, hierarchy, survival as a species etc etc?...

More questions only right?... Haha...