SO? What’s the first thing to do…… DON’T PANIC!!!!! This usually happens because the water quality is probably not so good. People ask me whether I check for nitrates levels, etc but I’ll be frank with you, I don’t at all. If you think you have high nitrate problems, well… change the water! I always do that! First thing I do when I see my arowana losing appetite or staying at the bottom of the tank often or it’s swimming patterns seem lethargic, etc, CHANGE THE WATER…

I have said this many times, this should always be your first course of action. It has never failed me until today. No point worrying about what to do first… AGAIN 1st STEP IS… YOU SHOULD CHANGE THE WATER. (Sorry for being naggy but I hope you get it by now.)

So below are the steps I took…
1) 3 weeks back, I change the water like usual during the weekends. 20 – 25% water change as usual. I also always add salt to it. Salt is like, lack of a better word, a tonic to it. I do not add anti-chlorine or any medication to it. No need for all these ok.

I usually do no feed it on the day of water change. I tried to feed it the next day but all it did was bite on the chopped prawn pieces and spat it out. I did not think much of it as it’s done this before. It did the same thing practically throughout the week but I thought they were just not hungry.

2) 2 weeks back, during the weekend, I change the water and added some salt in again as usual… It again decided not to eat for the whole week.

3) Last Sunday, I again change the water, added salt BUT this time, also added blackwater. I sometimes add blackwater as they do like this but it’s really not always necessary. It’s up to you. But the good thing is, it started to eat again yesterday. Was blackwater the ‘cure’, I really don’t think so but as I said, it does not hurt to add them if you have it.

So what is the moral behind this story?
When your arowana don’t eat, DON’T PANIC. Continue to change the water as I did.
I know there is a quote that says “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again but expecting different results.” Well, this quote does not stand for arowanas ok! In fact, you should change the water over and over again until they do eat. Think about it logically… there must be something in the water that is causing the problem right UNLESS of course, your arowana has inherent health problems that cannot be detected visually. In these cases, it is just bad luck as no one could have predicted that the arowana you bought has health issues.

Hope this will clear up some of your anxieties. Cheers and have a great day!

1. Warped Scales
Also known as cone scales, warped scales affect young arowanas more easily than adults. This condition is caused by immediate temperature change in the aquarium water and poor quality of water. This disease will start with just few scales warping with congested roots. If this is not attended immediately, the scales tend to bend and swell. When the scales raise, this will minimize the capability of the fish to protect itself from pathogen invasions. The scales will drop off and expose a certain area of its body increasing the susceptibility of bacterial attack. Then this will lead to ulceration and eventually causes death.

To stop the condition from getting worse, add in one kilo of salt to every 100 liter of aquarium water. Maintain the temperature at 32 to 34 degrees. Every three days or so, change about 20% of the water. Before you add in new water, make sure to heat up the water. It also makes sense to add antibiotic to the water if the affected area seems huge enough, to prevent infections.

2. Water Mycosis
The fungus stays in the wound of your arowana. It is light gray in color. Water mycosis is caused by fungal hyphae that cover the wound. This causes instability to the movement of the fish as it swims and rubs its body against parts of the tank to try and stop the itch. If this condition continues, it could be fatal to your arowana as it tends to lose it’s appetite as well as get secondary infections caused by bacteria in the water.

To treat water mycosis, you need to add in salt to the aquarium water with one percent consistency. Put disinfectant to the wound or you can add methyl red (4-5 drops) in every 100 liters of water at 5 percent consistency. For about 3 minutes, add in potassium chromatic solution of 1/30000 unit to the water.

3. Ascites
Young arowanas are the ones who are usually affected by this disease. This is usually caused by either decaying food which has been left in the water for too long or if the fish had accidentally swallowed something sharp (like a fish bones or prawn head pincer) which could have hurt its internal organs. This would lead to vibrion infection and ascites. This infection will cause stomach flatulence and swollen anal region. The arowana will tend to have problems balancing itself with its head pointing down most of the time.

Treating ascites includes administration of sulphonamide or antibiotic. The water also needs to be changed and temperature raised by 2-3 degrees to give it a chance to recover. But I have to say, the chances of recovery is slim when this condition hits.

What’s in a Crowd?

Arowanas are usually solitary creatures. Several arowanas can be placed together in a tank in groups BUT ONLY IF they are put together since young. (I personally recommend odd numbers.) If you try to put adult arowanas together in a tank, they will fight and this can be fatal. BE WARNED!!!
They also have tendencies to become aggressive and dominant over other fishes. Should you decide to give your arowana some non-arowana tank mates, do not put in fishes that are small enough to fit easily into its mouth. It is also better to add fishes that are semi-aggressive. Stingrays, oscars, clown knifefish, and parrotfish are good company for your arowanas.

In the Tank

The size of your fish tank must be able to accommodate territorial needs of your arowana. I would recommend a tank size of at least 4x2x2feet to start off with. This would probably be able to accommodate 2-3 fishes for at least 3 years. You should keep your tank covered as arowanas are known to jump up to 6.6 feet high. This fish needs to live in a well-filtered and clean tank. Being meat-eaters, they tend to excrete a lot of wastes. Poor maintenance of tank could lead to nitrate and ammonia toxicity.
Also at least 20% water change is desirable once a week. Clear water does not mean the water quality is good!!! Water pH level is ideally kept from pH6.5 to pH7.0. You should also keep your tank away from direct sunlight as algae grows easily in such condition and will cause oxygen levels to drop in the water.
Sudden rise or drop of water temperature can be harmful and can lead to shock. Maintain your tank’s water temperature to 26 to 30 degree Celsius. Investing in an aquarium temperature checker will do your fishes well. You may put some fine gravel on your tank’s bottom surface but bear in mind that cleaning can be a hassle if you have this. You can also add some rocks or plants to create a natural looking environment for your fish. Be careful not to put anything inside the tank that has sharp edges.

Moving Your Fish to a Larger Tank

This can be stressful for you (and the fish) but you will probably have to do this once or twice when your arowana grows in size. Remember to cycle the water in your new tank for at least 2 weeks. Catch your arowana from the old tank using plastic bags and bring the entire bag into the new tank. Open the bag and mix the water in it with the water in the new tank. This will help to ensure that the water temperature does not change too much as arowanas gets stressed when water temperature changes too drastic too suddenly. Let this bag float for about 20 minutes and then add more water into it. Do this about 3 times and then release your arowana into the new tank. It will usually take your arowana 2-3 weeks to adapt to the new tank and environment. It is also common for them to stay off food during this period.
You can check out this post as I show you first hand how I moved my new arowanas home.
Bringing Your Arowana Home

The Importance of Arowana According to Feng Shui

Feng Shui is a Chinese system focusing on environmental balance. It is a study of people in relation to their environment, particularly their home or place of work for the purpose of achieving utmost harmony with all spiritual forces thought to affect all places.
The element water is very useful and fundamental in Feng Shui. The combination of arowana or dragonfish and water is believed to produce potential positive results. In addition, clean and clear water in the aquarium brings natural beauty that blends with areas that the fish is kept in.

Feng Shui experts suggest placing the arowanas in the eastern, northern or south-eastern location of the office or house. It is not recommended to set the tank in the kitchen and bedroom as this is thought to cause sickness and financial problems.
Most of the Chinese owners believe that keeping an aquarium with 8 or 9 fishes inside the house bring good luck and fortune. People living in Southern China emphasized that the number 8 symbolize prosperity and the number 9 represent longevity. These two numbers are regarded to signify luck.

Symptoms of Upturned Gills

The first symptom noted with an Arowana experiencing curling of gills is the gills inability to open and close well with every breath of the fish. This causes the gill cover to give up, curl outwards and expose the gills. As the gills are exposed, the fish is put at risk to infections. Naturally the fish will have difficulty breathing and is manifested by fast breathing. This encourages the fish to put its head above water just to breathe. The Arowana suffers from lack of appetite. The gills begin to function abnormally as a result of infection.

Care and Treatment for Arowanas With Upturned Gills

Once you have observed your Arowana not breathing well, the first thing you should do is to change the water in your fish tank. Around 20% of tank water is ideally changed once every two to three days. You can also use an air pump to provide more oxygen for your fish. You can also try moving your fish out into a bigger tank. If the gill covers of your fish has not hardened yet you can use a wave maker so when your fish swims against the current it makes, the upturned gill covers will naturally go back to normal. In worse cases however, as your Arowana’s gill covers have already curled up and hardened, an operation would be the most appropriate option to save your fish. This operation has to be done by an expert with properly sterilized instruments. In this procedure, the infected part of the gill cover, as well as tissues growing under it will have to be removed. The fish will have to undergo anesthesia before it is taken out from the tank. To prevent further infection, antiseptics or antibiotics may be given. Once the trimmed parts have grown, your fish is considered healed.

Varieties

There are many varieties of the Asian Arowana. There is the Green Arowana from Indonesia; the Banjar Red from Banjar Nasin; the Red Tail Golden from Sumatra; the Golden Crossback Arowana from Malaysia; Red Grade 1 from Kalimantan and the Tong Yang, which is a crossbreed between Golden Crossback and Red Grade 1.

Tank Maintainance

Keep your Asian Arowanas happy by giving them enough space to swim in. The tank size for one is ideally 4 x 2 x 2 feet AT A MINIMUM. Should you decide to keep more, you should get a larger tank. This species particularly likes soft and slightly acidic water with pH maintained at 6.4 to 6.8 and water hardiness at KH2 to KH20. An abrupt temperature change is not healthy for your fish. Appropriate temperature will give your fishes more coloration. The tank must be properly filtered. Knowing that Arowanas are carnivorous, they tend to release more waste. Filtration should depend on the size of your tank. You can always use biological filters if your tank is not that big. Tank water should be changed at 10% to 20% once or twice a week. Arowanas cannot tolerate unexpected changes in their water.

Diet

Like any other Arowana species, this Arowana has preference towards live fresh food, which is live food. This fish is a surface feeder; you may feed them with floating food. They can be fed with mealworms, shrimps, small fishes, and even moth larvaes. Don’t feed them with the same thing each time. Provide variety for healthy nutrition. For better color development though, it is best that you feed them with live food feeding on food rich in ceratanoids. This will enhance their red and gold color. Don’t zealously feed your Arowanas, they might end up overfed, which is not healthy at all. An adult Asian Arowana may be fed every other day.

If you take good care of your Asian Arowana, they could live up to 20 years, and for those who believe in Feng Shui or Vastu, will bring you health, wealth and prosperity.

1. Protruding Scales
This usually happens when the arowana is at a young age. Adult arowanas do not usually get affected by this disease. This disease is caused by events that lead to extreme change in temperature inside the aquarium as well as water contamination.
When this disease affects your arowana, you can observe its scale to get tilted at every fifth to eighth scale. You can see traces of blood at the scales’ root. It is possible for the scales to get tilted and reddened when not arrested during this stage. When this happens, the scales will not be able to give protection to the body and cause attacks of bacteria. The scales will drop off and cause the body to decay and leads to death.
To treat the disease, add coarse salt to the aquarium water and increase the temperature to 32 degrees to 34 degrees. Make sure that the oxygen content in the water is increased. Change the water every three to four days. Before you actually change the water, you can heat it first and add copper sulfate medications to it.

2. Stomach Ailments
These ailments usually occur when the arowana is young due to the consumption of stale food or an injury caused by a prawn’s princer causing stomach to be infected with some bacteria. This will cause the belly of the fish to swell. During this initial stage, the fish will have a swollen anus as well. At the serious stage, the arowana may have lost balance and dips its head downwards.
As of today, there is limited cure to this ailment; fish medications can be administered. It can also help to change the water in the aquarium to prevent complications while increasing the temperature by 2 to 3 degrees.

3. Fish lice attack
These lice are visible with the naked eye. They have a length of about 3 to 5 mm and have flattened body shell. Their needle-like structure found at their mouth allows them to suck out the arowana’s blood fluid causing the dragon fish to lose its lustre. This condition will also make the arowana uncomfortable and it will scrape the bottom or side of the aquarium’s gravel. The parasites can be killed with the use of copper sulfate medications. Make sure to have your fish soaked in a concentrated salt solution while increasing the oxygen content of the aquarium.

CALL it an artificial sun-tanning device – for fish.

Hobbyists and breeders have taken to a tanning rod developed by leading fish breeder Qian Hu, which exports more than 1,000 species to more than 80 countries.

Switched on over an aquarium, it can intensify the red and gold colours of fish like the Asian arowana, goldfish and koi.

That is a big attraction for enthusiasts who believe that brilliantly hued fish bring them good fortune.

It has already proven a boon to breeders and aquariums – the tanned fish sell for more, even fetching five-figure sums.

A red arowana, which sells for between $1,000 and $80,000 depending on fin size and colour, can go for double the price after tanning.

Qian Hu developed the rod, affixed with LED lights, after working on it for 21/2 years. It went on the market this year.

Kept under the light for six months, the fish develop a tan that lasts about five months.

About 800 of the rods have been sold here so far at between $67 and $159, and 5,000 have been exported.

The popular Nanyang Trading Aquarium in Jalan Kayu said it sold 300 rods to hobbyists in three months.

Three arowana fish farms also acquired the rods with an eye on boosting the quality of their exports.

The idea of tanning fish is not new.

Ornamental fish farmers and hobbyists have long known that arowanas deepen in colour under sunlight.

So they have placed fluorescent lights and even torchlights over their tanks, to give their fish that extra glow.

But Qian Hu’s innovation is the first purpose-built tanning rod for such fish.

Its head of research and development, Mr Alex Chang, explained that the LED rod emits a wider spectrum of ultraviolet rays than fluorescent lights.

He and his team of five tested the rod on more than 300 arowanas.

Mr Chang said: ‘Many people keep these fish for auspicious reasons and they want it to be very red and very gold. We have customers from Russia who spend a lot of money on such fish because they don’t want to waste time tanning the fish themselves.’

Mr Fong Ching Loon, who chairs the Singapore Aquarium Fish Exporters’ Association, said the innovation helped to keep Singapore’s ornamental fish trade competitive.

The Asian arowana, also known as dragonfish, is one of the top 10 popular breeds of fish exported. Exports of this breed alone were worth $5.9 million last year, up from $2.26 million in 2000.

With other species included, Singapore led the global ornamental fish market with $80.3 million in exports last year – a fifth of the world market.

Meanwhile, netizens in online forums such as arowanaclub.com and arofanatics.com have been abuzz over the tanning rod, with some asking if exposure to the light was safe for their pets.

Mr Louis Ng, executive director of Animal Concerns, Research and Education Society (Acres), said research has shown that exposing fish to ultraviolet light is unlikely to have a negative effect on them.

But Ms Deirdre Moss of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, urged hobbyists to pause a while, saying: ‘They should ask themselves: Is it necessary?’

Hobbyist Richard Goh, 50, who has tested the tanning rods, is going ahead to use them on his 200 red and gold arowanas.

‘Red and gold arowanas have to be really red so they bring more luck,’ he said. ‘They are also prettier.’

By limjess@sph.com.sg (From The Straits Times on 3rd Jun 2011)

What do you think I did after I read this article? Yes yes, I’m a sucker for anything that can help my arowanas intensify their color. To be frank, my arowanas already had pretty ‘good’ gold color BUT I just had to try the lights to see how much further they could enhance it!

Soooo I did the obvious…. I bought the lights the very next day!!! Here’s a photo of what the box and light looks like…

Does this really work? I have no idea but what I can say is that Qian Hu would not put it’s reputation on the line if they were not confident that it would. Anyway time will tell and personally, I do hope it works as it would give me immense pleasure watching my enhanced ‘gold bars’ swimming around in the tank! ;D

Cheerio and have a good week ahead!

Ok .. now back to the topic…
When the arowanas are brought home, you should put the plastic bags with the fishes into the tank. This is to allow the temperature in the bags to approach that of the tank water.. If the water temperature is too much, this will stresss your fish unnecessarily. So be patience with this step. I usually leave the bags in for about 30 min to allow thiis to happen.

After this, slowly open up the bags and fill them up with the water (everytime with a single scoop or two of water into the bags) from the tank. Do this several times until the bags are almost full of water. Should be an interval of about 20 minutes or so between each time. This is also to help ‘equalize’ the water.
Look at the four photos below to get an idea…

Your arowanas can be a bit jumpy when they are in a new environment.. so don’t get too worried. They will probably also not eat for the first couple of days. ALL THIS IS NORMAL OK…. So don’t go pulling out your hair worrying about something normal..

Below here are my new golden babies in their new tank.. Enjoy and take care!

What happened was my wife wanted me to move my tank to another location in our house and of course I could not just lift it up and carry it right.. I could have said no to my wife but thought better as she would probably nag me until I did it anyway. Sigh! So anyway, I decided to do it ASAP. As I did not have a spare tank in my house, I decided to move my 5 crossbacks to the farm so that I could drain the tank and move it to the new location.

I’ll be frank here… There are not really any hard and fast rules as to how to move your arowana to a new tank/location. But what I’ll be describing below will definitely give you an idea on how it’s done if you ever needed to do it yourself.

HOWEVER here is my advise ok… if you have just one arowana, then I think you can probably do it yourself but if you have more than one, maybe it would be better to get some professional help to move them. You really do not want to stress out your arowanas unnecessarily. Trust me on this!

So anyway, let’s get started with the move ok… ENJOY!!!

1) The below are probably the only equipment that you would need to do the job. A styrofam box, STRONG plastic bags and fish stabilizer. The fish stabilizer is to make your arowana a bit drowsy so that it would become ‘calmer’ and not struggle too much when you try to guide it into the plastic bag.

2) Example of a fish stabilizer …

3) Ok before you start, it would make sense to drain a bit of water from the tank. This is in case your arowana becomes a bit excited and jumpy… You don’t want it to accidentally jump out of the tank while you are trying to move it do you?

4) After draining some water, put a bit of the fish stabilizer into the tank to calm the fish down. Be mindful that this is potent stuff ok.. so use sparingly… Read the instructions on the bottle.

5) Put the plastic bag into the water and guide the arowana into the bag. Do not try and force the arowana into the bag as this can cause it to become very agitated and jump around and injure itself.

6) Before you tie up the plastic bag for transport, do put in a drop of the fish stabilizer to calm it down for the transport to another location. (Only needed if the distance is far enough and in this case is to the farm.)

7) Putting the arowanas into the tank in the farm. What you should do is put the entire bag into the water first for about 30mins. After which, open the bag and slowly mix the tank water with the bag water before slowly releasing the arowana into the tank.

Ok hope you enjoyed the above ‘move’. Do share if you have any other methods. Oh by the way, some people also oxygenate the bags before they tie up the bag for transport but I think it might not be needed if the distance is short. Like I said… no hard and fast rules to follow but some people do take additional steps… Cheers and take care…