Anyway I would like to share a story with you from one of my readers. (It is reproduced verbatim below)
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Hi Steven

I brought 3 Arowanas in my fish tank about 2 weeks back. 2 of them did not eat the food except the live fish, whenever given. One arowana was okay with having feed as well as live fish.
but for past 2-3 days, the arowanas were not acting normal. they reduced their movements, rather like to stay idle. I thought that they might be hungry so I brought live fish for them. Probably all of them had eaten them.
But yesterday, one of them firstly started swimming down the water, subsequently remained with its head down. and others too were not active, one of them was getting its tail downwards, and both remained inactive while staying idle on the corners of the tank on the top.
i gave medicine (tetracyclin and another anti-biotic for gastric disorder) and increased the temperature to 28 degrees, and about 2 hours later of medication, I changed over 25% of water maintaining the same temperature. thereafter i increased the water temperature to 30 degrees.
in the meanwhile, i could see a change in other 2 arowanas but the one with head dipping downwards had a little improvement.
but today morning the arowana with head dipping downwards, dies. alas!
on inspection, i could find that the surviving arowanas, although they are better in their movements, but they have lost their color and texture and the fins are also broken. and one of them is still having tail tilting downwards.
I am really attached with arowanas, last year also i lost 2 of my arowanas.
please suggest me the remedy
regards

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Some observations here that will help you manage your beloved arowanas better.

1) Everytime, when you sense that something is not right with your arowanas, the first thing you do is change the water! Don’t have to think ok about what to do…. just change the water. Again change a maximum of 20-25% maximum each time. Also do not change everyday but every other day if needed. (I’m assuming that you are using tap water.) You do not need anti-chlorine as it is only 20% change in water. I have never used anti-chlorine in any of my water changes.
The problem I see is that many hobbyist procrastinate in changing water and hoping for the best. Do not wait for another day but change the water ASAP once you detect some anomaly in the behaviour of your arowana.

2) Medication should be used ‘sparingly’ and should NEVER be your first action plan. I have never used medication at all for my 5 cross-backs in my tank. (3 years now) I make it a point to change water every 2 weeks or so with additions of salt and black water everytime I change it.

3) When your arowanas have problems, I also see many hobbyist feeding them more food thinking that they are hungry. This is more often than not, the wrong deduction and definite the wrong thing to do. Your arowana being sick is 99% caused by the condition of the water. When you add more live food into it, you are increasing the waste in the water (your live food also produces waste) which makes the water more polluted than before. If you have sick fishes, avoid feeding them for a few days until you have done the necessary.

Hope the information above has given you a better insight into what actions to take when you see problems. Cheers!

A) Below here is the feedback I got from a reader.
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I recently purchased your online book which was very informative.

I was interested in keeping arowana and wanted to be prepared the best I could.

I followed everything your book mentioned down to the slightest detail and purchesed an Austrailian arowana.

This was no common Australian arowana,he must have been a hybrid between a pearl and a spotted because he had beautiful red spots along with green scaling.

(I have attached a photo which dose him no justice).

He was a very beautiful (and expensive for me) fish.

The shop keeper had raised him since he was 1-2 inches and was going to keep him but sold him to me at 4 inches.(I have been buying other fish from this gentalman for 2 years and have established a good relationship with him,I own a 210 gallon tank).

The hospital tank’s previous inhabitant was a Datnoid (which is a relatively delicate fish when young but fared just fine for the 3 months I kept him there) so the tank was well established, well planted (plastic) and well aireted.

The PH was 7.0,Temp 80 F.

So, I floated the arowana for twenty minutes, then acclimated him further by dripping water from an airline tube into his bag for another 20 min and then finally put him in the tank.

He was doing just great!

That night I fed him frozen krill and he ate vigorously and did so the following 2 days.

On that day while going over your book again I noticed had I failed to pick up the “black water extract”. So I purchased this, read the instructions,and added to the tank.(This is my first time using this product but I wanted to follow all your instructions).

The following day I woke up to feed the arowana, He wouldn’t eat and was darting around the tank. It was obvious he was stressed.

Everything was fine except the PH.

It had gone from a steady 7.0 to below 6.0 (my PH test kit ranges from 6.0-9.0)

I immediately did a 25% water change, waited an hour, then tested the water, and repeated this in total 3 times till the PH went back up to 7.0

He did not eat that day and the next morning I found him dead.

I felt that the black water was to blame and I believe this stuff is very powerful.

So, my suggestion to you would be if at all possible to edit your book a bit by adding that “the adding of Black Water should be done cautiously and added to the tank prior to adding fish to ensure proper PH being that this product has the ability to drop PH levels drastically.” Or something along those lines.

I thank you for your time in reading this and hope you can pass this information along so that other arowana keepers don’t make the same mistake that I have made.

This is my answer …
John Doe
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B) The following is my reply to him.

Thanks for your very concise email. However, your case is the first one that I have heard about black water extract being the culprit. I personally do not think that this is the problem as I have used it extensively in my years of arowana care. In fact, my farm and many hobbyists we know also uses it extensively without problems. In fact I always put more of the black water into my tank when I change water as it help to calm my arowanas. As you know I have 5 xback golden arowanas which cost me quite a bit of money and I would not use something that I have not tested before myself. But I thank you again for sharing your story with me.

Because you have been so concise, I am able to offer some possibilities on why your arowana could have lost it’s appetite and later died. Again I must emphasize that this are only my observations based on what you have said below.. (but for why it died, I am pretty certain of my point 3 unless I interpreted your wordings wrongly)

1) If your datnoid (or tiger fish ) is larger than your arowana, they will attack arowanas smaller than them. In fact I had one Siamese tiger which was very aggressive. They stalk their preys and will usually not hunt when we’re around. It could have attacked your arowana over the few days which made it become agitated eventually.

2) Arowanas will not eat when they are full. In fact I know of some that will lay off food for a few days because they over ate.. So if you arowana is not eating for a day or two, it is ok. If you see it behaving strangely, (out of the norm) the first thing to do is to change the water.

3) If I interpreted your process of changing your water correctly, this is the most probably cause of death of your fish. (In fact I’m 99% sure) You cannot change so much water in one day. You changed it 3 times over a period of a few hours I believe. ( Eventhough it is 25% each time but this is almost like changing 75% of the water at a go) You should have changed only once and wait for the next day before changing another time.

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So now… to answer my own question about whether black water is safe to use…? Well… I will have to say yes for now as I’ve yet to personally encounter any issues with it. I never had problems with it before and it does help to de-stress my arowanas after a water change. If any of you have differing opinions about this topic, feel free to add your comments below. To me, there is truly no right or wrong answers….

Cheers!
Steven

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Dear Steven,

I have two 32 inch silver arowanas in a 350 gallon aquarium. One has not eaten in 7 weeks the other 3 weeks. They exhibited courtship behavior until recently one almost killed the other and had to be separated. No spawning occurred. Is this unusual to go this long without eating? Any ideas on how to stimulate an appetite?

Anonymous – John Doe
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I ask John many questions and as far as I could tell, he did everything right.. He changed water, check for nitrates, ammonia, pH, etc .. and monitored the temperature closely. When they fought, (or rather when one tried to kill the other) he administered Metronidazole, Methylene Blue to prevent infection and help them recover. I was extremely impressed with his very detailed plans to help his arowanas recover.
John also mentioned that his silver arowana was now sitting at the bottom of the tank 90% of the time now..

This was my reply to him..
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John,
I used to have a red arowana who sat at the bottom of the tank quite often as well. With water changes, it helped it get better over time.
I am not sure abt using reverse osmosis water but my water change is just tap water with some salt and black water added. I hardly use any medicine because to be frank, it is not good for your fish. I usually stay away from medicine unless I know it is needed. (like fin rot, ich, etc) I have cured many of my fish problems with just salt alone! I’ll be frank here, I really do not know what the problem here is with your fish but I would like to suggest a simple process for you to follow for the next week or so.

1) Change 20% of your water every other day for the next week or so. Use tap water. (I’ve never used reverse osmosis water before BUT I have used water from the popular diamond energy water system before.)

2) Just add salt … about 1 teaspoon per gallon of water.

3) If you can get blackwater, add in some too.

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I basically asked John to just do two things different here. Add salt and blackwater if he had any. Guess what, this worked like a charm! His arowana’s appetite started to return in no time.

This are my final thoughts for this particular case…
1) When you have problems with your arowana, think simple… I am not joking as I have never used medication before to cure any of my arowana’s problems. Sometimes, medication can make your fish lethargic, lifeless, etc.. Once I used to add one of those ‘disease away’ formulas but have not used that for a long time as well. This, in the long run, reduces the resistance in the fish! It’s like giving medication to a healthy fish! BUT having said this, if you see visible signs of lice, finrot, etc.. then ofcourse you have to administer medication ok. But what I’m saying here is, I ACT WHEN IT IS STILL EARLY. What to do first? CHANGE WATER! CHANGE WATER! CHANGE WATER! ( Sound like your mother… well I hope you remember this always )

2) After changing water, I ALWAYS add a little salt and blackwater.. Blackwater will help calm your arowana but to me, salt is a must! Salt somehow manages to keep many diseases away from my arowana. John was reluctant initially to add salt because an aquarium shop owner told him that it’s not good for the fish! I’m not sure what that statement was based on BUT for me, it has worked for years! BUT BUT having said that, please don’t start to add salt to your water IF you’re not changing water. Only do it when you change water ok!

Cheers!

Without further ado, here is the first one from readers… This is the email I received and is posted verbatim to you.

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Hi, I just thought I’d share my recent tragedy with you and perhaps you can pass it on to our extended Arowana lovers family.

I recently did a 25 percent water change on my 140 gallon Tank that housed my 26 inch 7 year old silver Arowana. After the change, I noticed he was acting very nervously. He was jumping and smashing into the glass. When I tested the water, I noticed the salt was much higher than I normally have it. 0.40%. It is usually between 0.15 and 0.20. I don’t know if this is the reason for his behavior (perhaps you could theorize…). The next day, I changed 20%, and the day after another 20%. Incidentally, he seemed to calm down allot. The following night after returning home, we noticed he was not in the tank. He had managed to knock a weighted piece of glass off of the tank and strand himself on the back edge of the glass. I don’t know how long he was out for, but he was still breathing when I put him back in, but his equilibrium was gone, and he died late that night. We feel as if we lost a member of our family. He will be missed, his name was Sparkles.

Thank you,

John Doe (All anonymous will be John Doe ok. )

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My observations and recommendations :

1) I will also add some salt into my tank with every change of water. Many people have asked me how much salt to put. To be frank, I really don’t measure but to give you a gauge, I have a 5x2x2 feet tank and I usually add about maybe 150gms of salt in it. (Why I know is because I buy 1kg bags of salt..) I will also add some black water in it.. How much? It does not really matter because in my experience, this is harmless. (Ok I do have one reader who wrote me another post who stated otherwise but I will share that in another post to you. That reader does have a point because by process of elimination, it does sound like it was the cause but anyway… will share later … suspense! suspense! )

2) John did the right thing by changing water. As I have mentioned many times, if your fish is acting strangely for no apparent reason, this should always be your first cause of action!

3) Cover your tanks properly. Arowanas will JUMP! It is in their nature ok! A few readers asked me in the past about how to train their arowanas to NOT jump! This can’t be done and we will have to live with it. In the wild, arowanas jump up from the water to catch small preys like birds! If you do not cover your tanks properly, there is a high chance that they will knock the cover off and you will have an arowana who thinks that it can breathe air and fly! (Sorry no pun intended but just trying to drive the point across!)

In John’s case, we won’t really know what caused it to jump but the most probably cause is an insect or something on the top cover. My previous arowana (which is at the farm now) has bruised it’s mouth many time trying to catch insects that landed on the top glass cover. In my arowana care book, I narrated a story about a close personal friend of mine who was ONLY third time lucky because his first 2 red asian arowanas jumped out of the tank. The third time, he put bricks on top of the glass cover. A bit extreme but it worked!

How heavy must the top cover be? This is really subjective. What I have are pieces of glass on top of my tank and two 5 foot lights sitting on it. This should be sufficient..

Ok hope you learn something from this. Let me know your thoughts below. Cheers!

Steven

But seriously, I just want people to contribute so we can all learn from each other. Nothing is cast in concrete and to be frank, I am also learning alot from all of you.. so thanks a lot…

BUT don’t worry, I will ONLY share your stories once I have received permission from you to do so. Also if you want to remain anonymous, let me know… no worries there… SO I would encourage you to share your arowana stories/worries/concerns/etc so that we can all learn from it! I really want to see the arowana community thrive and this is a good start!

I will try and showcase stories that I think will help make us all better arowana hobbyists. No experience is too silly because we all started as amateurs.

Will start the first sharing session the week after May Day as I’ll be flying off to Perth for golf this coming Tuesday. Need a break!

Talk to you soon.
Steven