Reminiscing Keeping the Channa Aurantimaculata

Forum for discussion on big size fishes such as Arowana, Flowerhorns etc.
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jibran_shariff
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Reminiscing Keeping the Channa Aurantimaculata

Unread post by jibran_shariff »

it was the end of the first month and my first salary had been credited, and a friend of mine was getting fish from Andrew rao, and i was pretty much excited to get some fish and as i had never kept a channa, asked for a channa aurantimaculata after a load of research, almost all my free time had been invested to find out and read about this beast.

bangalore was a new place and i had to quickly setup a tank and gather the decor for the setup, it took me a while almost 2 weeks before i got it all

ok lets get onto the details of the tank
the tank was a 48"x24"x18" - a 90gallon tank
substrate was golden sand and i had painstakingly removed most of the shells that were in the sand.
decor was only driftwood, close to 30 kilos of driftwood

and here is a pic

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all that driftwood was a tight fit in the tank.

when i got the little blighter on a sunday i was not that very impressed, it was a little more than 5" in length and was pretty colorless, and looked quite dull.

i took him home and dumped him in his tank.

the next day i fed him some dry shrimp which he accepted pretty easily which was a relief as i was warned that the fish might not accept food readily.

here are a few old pics of him when he was still quite small

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the tank was so heavily tanned most of the time that i never bothered to take pics of the tank or the fish for quite a many months after getting the fish, the person who had made the tank for me, was very much in dismay after he saw his tank filled with black water and there was zero visibility in the tank and there was quite a lot of algae on the front pane of the tank.

after a few months the fish grew a few inches on a diet of dried shrimp and hikari cichlid gold pellets, and i used to add live shrimps once in a month as treats.

by the next time i took pics of the fish, it had grown t a modest 10"+ mark and was quite tame by then, and had to remove one big piece of driftwood to give some space to the growing monster

here are a few intank pics

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as time passed from months to years this fish had pretty much claimed the tank and the area of the room in front of the tank to be its own, whenever i came and sat down in front of the tank, which was pretty much every evening after work, it demanded food by banging onto the front pane of the tank, and its thumps were so very audible that i could hear them from the other room across the hall.

and it used to be very calm even when i used to take my hand close to it and touch while feeding it

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some in tank pics as the tannic acid reduced over the time

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over a period of three years and more this fish was a stunner and used to put visitors in a trance and a barrage of questions would be asked about this fellow, not only among the non fish keeping fraternity even among the fish keepers

it always was fun to photograph the beast that he was close to 17" or so i presume

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the gold stripes always were fascinating

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another closeup of the eye
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always watching you

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one thing about the monster fish that i've noticed is, no matter how skittish they are to begin with or how tame they were, as they get bigger and they get to know you they stop fearing you and this boldness very soon transforms into intimidation, where they start threatening you, which is absolutely precious

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i think he was asking me to put food


a few more pics that reminds of this stunning fish

hand feeding gone wrong, it did manage to draw blood, there were three deep cuts and a few scratches
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he loved superworms(i saw a lot more active fish when i introduced superworms and crickets to its diet)
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and here is a show of colors

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i hope my long and winding post didn't bore you to sleep
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parthapratim22
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Re: Reminiscing Keeping the Channa Aurantimaculata

Unread post by parthapratim22 »

each and every picture I enjoyed like anything!!! tank also looking super!!! Hats off Man!!! diablo
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Abhishek
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Re: Reminiscing Keeping the Channa Aurantimaculata

Unread post by Abhishek »

You always were a good photographer, now very happy to see you put words to the images :)

Lovely experience and specimen.. :)
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Re: Reminiscing Keeping the Channa Aurantimaculata

Unread post by SCORPIO »

A rainbow.
“Take up one idea. Make that one idea your life - think of it, dream of it, live on that idea. This is the way to success.”

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jibran_shariff
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Re: Reminiscing Keeping the Channa Aurantimaculata

Unread post by jibran_shariff »

Abhisek this was one fish that was very close to me
This fish was there all through my bachelor life in bangalore
When I lost interest in fish keeping and decided to sell all fish and tanks the first fish that I sold off, to make sure I sell everything was this fish

I doubt I would keep another auranti ever again
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Re: Reminiscing Keeping the Channa Aurantimaculata

Unread post by Abhi »

No words.....
MTS: Multiple tank syndrome !
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Re: Reminiscing Keeping the Channa Aurantimaculata

Unread post by vijendra_s123 »

awesome fish and equally awesome pics and narration...:) :thumup
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Re: Reminiscing Keeping the Channa Aurantimaculata

Unread post by sushant »

vijendra_s123 wrote:awesome fish and equally awesome pics and narration...:) :thumup
:1
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Re: Reminiscing Keeping the Channa Aurantimaculata

Unread post by Abhishek »

I can understand the feelings associated with it :(
Do you know how it is now?
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jibran_shariff
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Re: Reminiscing Keeping the Channa Aurantimaculata

Unread post by jibran_shariff »

Abhishek wrote:I can understand the feelings associated with it :(
Do you know how it is now?
Don't know how it is
But the person who bought it was an avid channa keeper tabrez
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