PlanetCatfish.com

Viktor, how would someone donate funds safely if they wished to help you? Or if a business or sympathetic enterprise wished to sponsor you somehow?

It must be expensive rescuing fish and trying to set up your public aquarium.

Any donor could choose to pay directly a vendor for something concrete and tangible we need, e.g.,

-- $2000 worth of lumber from Home Depot or Lowe's, or
-- $500 worth of 4' PVC piping,
-- $5000 worth of acrylic sheeting I scavenged off local classifieds (Craigslist),
-- $1000 worth of acrylic glue from Interstate Plastics, CA
-- $1500 for 6 new RO membranes, or
-- pay our monthly electric bill, currently at $1500 a month, or
-- get us a gasoline gift card whatnot,
-- buy $300 worth of New Life Spectrum pellets or Bionic Bait frozen fish which we feed to our fish in one month...

By paying for concrete things the donor would know exactly what is done with their donation and it leaves no space for funny business.

Alternatively, money can be donated free of charge by PayPal, Zelle, and the likes, even personal check, piggy bank, etc.

Not that this ever happened to any significant degree... haha... Over the 10 years of rescuing fish perhaps 10 people of so gave us from $20 to $50 in cash. So all in all, around $500. Many did help in moving things physically.

Sorry you lost the Oscar, Viktor. It was a beast.

Cheers, Eric

Thank you, Eric.

...

Hi Viktor, seeing some colder water fishes made me think to ask you did you ever keep or are keeping ?

Cheers,

Jools

Thank you. I tried, Jools. It was before I had cooler enclosures like this 25K with its 84-86 F top temps unassisted, and 80-82 F assisted by fans and a chiller. The banded Chinese sharks couldn't handle our summer temps in the main fish pavilion of up to 86-90 F. They would do well in the cooler months and then wither away in the summer.

Neither can I try them now in the 25K as there are rather brutal fish in there while the sharks are timid and gentle and fragile at small sizes, I'd need at least a footer or bigger to try... unwilling to install a divider either as it'd be hard and probably won't work with tank mates like a 3.5 foot wels catfish in the 25K.

Ah yes, thanks, I didn't think about the heat. Makes sense, thanks Viktor.

Jools

Sorry, Viktor. How long are they supposed to live?

Best,
Eric

Thank you Eric. Their lifespan data are a bit scattered... 6.5 to 50 years haha:

6.5 years in the wild
http://media.eol.org/pages/223395/articles
https://animaldiversity.org/accounts/Os ... cirrhosum/
https://www.worldlifeexpectancy.com/fis ... cy-arowana

16 years in the wild "Stained growth mark counts resulted in a longevity estimate of at least 16 years for the silver arowana in the Peruvian Amazon."
https://www.researchgate.net/publicatio ... icirrhosum

10-15 years in captivity
https://www.fishkeepingworld.com/silver ... 15%20years
and https://www.aquariumsource.com/silver-arowana/
and https://www.theaquariumguide.com/articl ... er-arowana

10-20 years in captivity
https://animal-world.com/encyclo/fresh/ ... rowana.php

20+ in captivity by another source
https://www.thatpetplace.com/articles/a ... care-guide

15-20 years, said up to 50 years (the very bottom of the first post in this thread)
https://www.monsterfishkeepers.com/foru ... is.329584/

Ours was around 10 years old.

Does this help?

That's a nasty looking wound, I was amazed how quickly and well it healed!

Did you add any medication at all or just lots of fresh water?

Keep up the good work!

Hi Marc, thank you. It seems to be the first thin skin layer. There is still a kind of depression and one can see the contours of where there the skin died off, that is where the new skin ends and the old thicker one begins. With time, it will thicken and fill out the depression. The front third of the dorsal fin is still missing of course too, I really hope it will grow back but it may not or not fully and it will take longer time.

No meds I used. Just transferred the Sperata to another tank system, which was running normally.

Someone on YouTube noted how the new skin started forming, as if coming through, right from the muscle tissue and the wound didn't get closed by the skin spreading laterally from the healthy skin on the borders. (This I observed for many other catfish species who suffered similar skin die-offs due to attacks). They asked if this was normal for other animals. IDK. I don't even know how it happens with humans who lose large swaths of skin. Does anyone know?

Viktor Jarikov wrote: ↑11 Dec 2020, 14:10Someone on YouTube noted how the new skin started forming, as if coming through, right from the muscle tissue and the wound didn't get closed by the skin spreading laterally from the healthy skin on the borders. (This I observed for many other catfish species who suffered similar skin die-offs due to attacks). They asked if this was normal for other animals. IDK. I don't even know how it happens with humans who lose large swaths of skin. Does anyone know?

Hi Viktor,

I've had some skin cancers removed where relatively large areas of skin are removed (2" or more) such that the skin cannot be closed with sutures and must heal as an open wound. It is my impression that both processes occur. First in the wounded area missing epidermis, the underlying connective tissue forms a thin "healed" epidermis. Then slowly, from the margins of the wound there is invasion. If you look at the sites on my skin where the healing has occurred, I'm not prepared to say that the side invasion is complete, as there is a permanent scar in the area. It is the shape of the original surgical skin removal but it's smaller, being partially filled in from the sides.

Good luck with the fish's recovery,
Eric

Thank you so much for this, Eric. So something similar does occur with humans.

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Back to it:

Something a bit different: