Hi all,
Been a long time. My apologies… Today is the eve of the Chinese Lunar New Year. Year of the Ox! To all my Chinese readers, have a great year ahead and may health, wealth and prosperity follow you! Cheers!
Now back to this very interesting topic. I have been getting a lot of questions as to why this problem happens. What is droopy eye anyway? Well it is a condition where one of the arowana’s eye looks like it is going to drop out. The eye juts out as if always looking down. It does somehow look abit unsightly sometimes and I can see the disappointment in the hobbyist voice and emails when they ask me for help.
Ok there is good news and bad news here! 
Good news is this is a cosmetic problem and your arowana will not die from it ok!
Ok the bad news is… I’ll be frank with you.. I really don’t think there is a cure once it has set it! I have seen a book where they did an operation on an arowana with this condition but I’m not sure how successful the operation was.
I will tell you what I think are the probable causes and cure but I will say this, no one has been able to truly ascertain the cause and cure for sure!
CAUSE :
1) When you feed your arowana too much fatty food like beef heart, goldfish, etc, fatty deposits can build up in the eyes. But some people have thrown cold water at this theory because it cannot explain why the fatty deposits only appears on the upper eye portion causing the eye to look down.
2) Arowanas are surface feeders and they usually chase their prey in the water looking around. Hobbyist have this habit of throwing their food into the tank and letting them sink to the bottom. (This is especially the case for non-live food which 80% of the hobbyist feed their arowanas.) The arowanas will then spend alot of their time looking down to search for the food. When this becomes a habit, they get what we can term ‘lazy eyes’. This causes them to look down all the time and over time, their eyes become permanently like that… hence droppy eyes!
CURE :
1) Throw the affected arowanas in a pond for a few months for the eyes to readjust back to as they were before! This is not always a plausible option as not everyone has access to a pond!
2) Surgery to correct the problem. As I said, I’m not sure whether this really cures the problem.
3) There was another ‘solution’ where people said to cover up the whole tank to block off light to the tank for a period of time! I really don’t know how this one works and if anyone knows, do let me know!
As you can see, I really don’t know any cure that is 100% guaranteed to work.
BUT this much I’m sure of! My arowanas until today has never had droopy eye syndrome! My 5 beautiful golden arowanas are in perfect condition!
Firstly I want to say this… ‘PREVENTION IS BETTER THAN CURE HERE!’
From experience, this is my take on the cause of the droppy eye syndrome. TO ME, I believe it is caused by CAUSE 2) which I explained above. We cannot simply throw the food into the tank and let them sink to the bottom and expect the arowanas to always pick it from the bottom of the tank. We must feed it piece by piece. What I do is drop the non-live food one at a time into the tank so that my arowanas eat from the top! This way they will always be looking up like in their natural habitat! I have been doing this for years and I never had this problem with my fish.
I used to feed my arowanas alot of goldfish before as well but this has not caused any problems so I kinda rule out the fatty food argument. But again this has not been proven beyond a doubt so I can only speak from my experience!
Anyway I hope you have gain some insight into this problem and hopefully be able to prevent it if it has not hit you already. Cheers and take care.
Tags: arowana, arowanas, droppy eye
Hi Steven
Would feeding live prawns cause the eyes to become droopy? The live prawns usually stat at the bottom of my tank.
I would try shielding the lamp in the tank with a poysterene so that light is diffused.
Seems to help, aro eyes more straight instead of rotating downwards all the time
Could be the glare
Victor,
You would know your arowana has a droopy eye when it looks like it is going to fall off its socket.
Steven
Kanglun,
It could be as they would have to look at them at the bottom all the time.
I would actually refrain from feeding them live prawns for another reason though. Live prawns have a sharp pointer infront of its head as well as have quite a hard tail. These could accidentally pierce the stomach of the arowana which would be bad. So be careful here..
Steven
My Silver arowana has droppy eye. The right eye looks perfectly fine but the left eye is dropped downwards, It is only 10 inches long. Kindly suggest the solution to cure the droppy eye.
Vicky,
I have included the suggested solutions in the blog post above.
Steven
After seeing your blog and reading yours answers I would like to tell me problem also – I got a silver arowana which is 15″ long up to now i dont see droop eye but yesterday after feeding prawn which is like a ice only direct from freezer i saw my arowana with this symptom – i think its one eyes is fully projected out and its going to blast like appearance – i mostly fed them with live fishes, multivitamin mix royal foods – also i notice that while it open its mouth the eye goes inside – i think some infection caused by feeding ice food
Matson,
You should let the food thaw first before feeding them so that it does not hurt your arowana.
Steven
Hi Everybody!
I have a problem with an Golden Arowana and I hope you can help me with your experience!
My Name is Mark Mrugalla.I am a Germany, based in South China next to Dongguan City.
The brother of my wife bought a Golden Arowana some months ago. Yesterday, he called me and asked me to take over his fish, because the fish didn’t eat since one month.
In the first place he wanted to give him back to the fish store where he bought the fish, but I disagreed and agreed to take him over for reasons I’ll explain later.
I have successfully several tanks since years. From a South American tank to a Malawi Tank and so on.
So I can say I have some experience in my fields.
BUT THIS IS MY FIRST AROWANA!!!!
Since yesterday evening I have the tank at home and before I do something stupid I started to get informations in the internet. So I found this great Internet Site and I take my chance and ask you guys for any help and information.
So here are some details:
They delivered me the tank yesterday evening, but the water was already out, so I had no chance to check the water with a kit. Still I could get some clues about how the fish was kept. On the ground and in the filter sponch was really deep green algae. It was so deep green like the the algae I am using to breed life food shrimps.
So, water change wasn’t done many times!!! The reason for the algae: the aquarium stand next to the window!!!!
By the way, the perosn in charge of the tank was the shop which offered a service!!!
And this guys have to take care of the fish now???
He wanted to put a cheap chemical into the water to clear the algae problem!!! Also I know in his shop he did already many mistakes which cost already many fish lifes. Like an adult brackwaterfish in sweatwater or having discus fish in a 24 degree tank and wondering why they become ill.
Anyway back to my new Arowana problem.
Algae is actually from the biological side nothing bad for the fish, but I was wondering how it comes that the algae grow so strong in short time? So, I assume the water was was almost never changed!!!
The tank size is L: 1 Meter, W: 50cm and H: 50 cm. 250 Liter in total. The Arowana, I would estimate, has a lenght of 25 – 30 cm. (If this story has a good end an bigger aquarium is already planned).
So here is what I have done till now:
I cleaned the aquarium and filter material. The water I am using is checked, filtered and used specially for most of my tanks. PH: 6.6 clorin-free, nitrat-free etc. The temperature is 25 degree. The tank itself stands on the ground. I covered the ground with sand. (the ground was like a mirror). Also, I covered the back and the sides of the aquarium, because it was 360 degreed made of glass. So, it should be a more calm place for him now(Escpecially after the big move yesteray).
From the fish behaviour, I can say that there is no big reason to panic like they did. The fish is swimming arround, prefers the upper and lower level. He reacts when I come close to the tank (but not panic), so he notice me and after some seconds he comes closer and looks at me. Also he is swimming straight. So, he’s behaving quiet fine, but…
… he doesn’t eat. From my chilid tank I put one silver fish inside: he doesn’t care. Than I tried some fresh shrimp meat: he doesn’t care.
So, it is true: he doesn’t eat. Also beside his normal behaviour his stomach looks quiet slim.
So there is the problem!!! And I ask for help, suggestions anything you can give me from your experience with Arowanas.
Today, I’ll try to give him some Guppies. (Maybe they will atract him more, slower swimmers and more colorful).
Second thinking I had, but i won’t do it before I don’t have more informations, is to raise the temperature slighty for some days. For many other fish, it is good stimulus for the blood circulation, also many bacteria can not handle the temperature change as good as a fish.
I can say the water in the Aquarium before wasn’t good. Also the perosn who did take care didn’t do it right.
What problem can be caused? Why he doesn’t eat? And what can i do? And how can I make him more comfortable or let’s say his natural enviroment?
Thank you very much
Mark Mrugalla
P.S.: After one day I can say Arowana is beautiful fish and I start to understand the magic of the fish:)
Mark,
It is very common for arowanas to not eat when they are moved to a new environment. Sometimes they can fast for more than a week or two. So you just have to be patience and do frequent water changes to ensure that the water quality is good.
Steven
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