Platinum Head xback from July Panda order

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hondas3000

New Member
that's a platinum? I thought its is gold xback or HBrtg with the gold shine on it. How old is it now? sure look different from the one kenta have. What is the pvc stick up in the middle of the tank for?
 
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bksze

New Member
Yea he's quite similar in color to my previous blue based gold xback, except the rims on this guy are much lighter. He's a little darker than i expected, mind you i keep it in a tank with a black sand bottom and big pieces of dark driftwood so maybe that has some influence on the color development.

I live in a condo so when designing my tank, I didn't want to go with a sump. What I ended up doing was drilling 4 holes into the bottom of my tank and using pvc piping and the four holes, I attached 2 fx5's directly to the tank. I also have an inline external heater on one of the outlets so there's nothing inside the tank except for the 4 pvc pipes. If I could redo it, I probably would've drilled the holes in different locations to make it easier to hide the pipes, however that'll be for the next tank.

Usually with the driftwood in proper position, you can't see the pvc from the straight ahead angle, however lately, my rays have been going crazy in the tank and no matter how often I try to set the driftwood, they'll keep knocking it over. Must be breeding season!

Anyways, he's pushing 14" I would guess. Very moody guy, won't eat from anyone else. He's going to have to learn quick because I'm going on a trip for 2 weeks in June.

Aside from that, great quality fish. Great to see the progression, as the color creeps up over the back.
 
Cirrus

Cirrus

Arowana blogger
Panda sold this fish as a "platinum head XB", not a platinum XB. As most of you know a true platinum XB would cost many thousands of $.

I have asked about the "Platinum head XB", but I am still kind of confused. From what I have seen it looks like a high quality gold/bb XB with gold threads or patches on head which has been subject to WTT prior to sale. If you look at Kenta's fish, you will see it looks quite different to fish photographed here. This is most likely due to Kenta's continued use of WTT.


[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W2-O-UZc414"]YouTube - Baby Panda Platinum Head Gold Cross Back[/ame]

If you look closely at Kenta's fish, you can see blue shaded horse shoes in the core of the scale. I wonder if this indicates some BBXB genes? This seems likely to me since the photos of the fish provided by the poster of this thread also seem to have a lot of BBXB? I have no first hand knowledge of aro breeding, so I am just speculating.

Compare either Kenta's fish or the thread poster's fish to that to a "real" platinum XB like the one on Hendri's new book:

Platinum%20Head.jpg



Definitely not the same fish! :)
 
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isjah

isjah

New Member
so if it was sold as a "platinum head" does that mean the head should be at least platinum??? if not, then where does the phrase platinum come to play??
 
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bksze

New Member
Sorry for the confusion . . . i know that I didn't get a fish like the one on cover indo 6. Maybe after we break through this recession, I'll be able to afford a fish like that. I should've included platinum "head" in the title, don't see an edit feature so maybe the mods can include that. I included the farm name in the hopes that there would be less discrepancy.

I didn't do any WTT so that may explain the darker coloration of my fish. When I first received it, he looked quite similar to kenta's fish.

Nothing to be ashamed of however! 5th level is filling out and starting to see trace shine on the 6th. I'm still very happy with the fish I have.

The thing with raising these aros is nothing is for certain no matter what age the fish is.

My DFI blue based xback came a xback, and then uncrossed itself, only to recross after a period of 2 years.
 
Cirrus

Cirrus

Arowana blogger
Nothing to be ashamed of however! 5th level is filling out and starting to see trace shine on the 6th. I'm still very happy with the fish I have.
Click to expand...

Yes, that is all that matters. I think it is one exotic fish you have and look forward to seeing how it develops. Kenta feels the same way about his plathead XB too :)


The thing with raising these aros is nothing is for certain no matter what age the fish is.
Click to expand...

And that is what makes the hobby so interesting...and hard to explain. :)

What are you feeding your aro these days?
 
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bksze

New Member
I do a handful of pellet mix, which by weight distribution equates to 10% algae wafers 10% hikari aro sticks 80% NLS sinking pellets. The aro usually takes most of the pellets. If not the loaches and the rays clean it all up.

A couple hours later he gets a bigger meal of either mealworms, superworms, earthworms or crickets. All frozen except the earthworms.

Could never get this guy on frozen shrimp. The rays and the loaches love it but the aro just spits it out every time without fail.
 
arapaimag

arapaimag

New Member
bksze said:
Finally had the time to compile some sort of web album. I've tried taking many pics but most of them come out blurry. Sorry for the lack of better photography skills. Here's a few of the better ones. They're in chronological order so the latter ones are the more recent ones.

Very nice fish and tank.........
Click to expand...
 
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