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.

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.

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.

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…

HOWEVER, keep your questions coming to my email address (steven@arowana-care.com) as I will continue to answer all your personal questions. However, moving forward, if I find your questions can benefit the wider arowana hobbyist community, I will post it here on the blog.

Again, have a Great Christmas day and 2010 ahead. May the new year usher in health, wealth and personal prosperity to all.
Cheers and take care.
Steven

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