January 6, 2007
2 year old Australian Jardini Arowana on the verge of dying..
Hi,
I want to share with you an email i received yesterday from an arowana hobbyist asking for help. His problem was that his jardini looked like it was dying. His arowana was lifeless and the film of 'shine' on it's body was gone and the scales were now very scruffy. These are the facts..
1) The hobbyist replaced quite a bit of water in the tank. I would assume more than 1/2 tank.
2) He also cleaned all the filters in the tank.
Many hobbyists tend to do the above together (I was guilty of it as well… Well we all learn as we go along. :-)) but you need to be aware of the consequences. Firstly, you should never change more than 1/4 tank water at any one time. The chemicals in the tap water will kill your fish! Secondly, do not do this in conjunction with a TOTAL cleaning of your filters. Your filters together with your ceramic rings, bio balls, etc.. is needed in the tank for the buildup of good bacterias to help break down all the waste. Like for me, I do not clean my bioballs at all..
Keep in mind the above and you should be ok..
Cheers!
Steven
Filed under Arowana Care Tips by Steven
Comments on 2 year old Australian Jardini Arowana on the verge of dying.. »
dear Steven,
you are right about the regular water change and the salt treatment. I lay off my hand on fish medication for almost two years now as I found out that early detection of deseases are vital. So a little water change and salt would do the trick. knowing your fish behavour is also important. A change in that usually meant something.
something to ponder:
People usually would not blink an eye when forking out a fortune upon buying a fish. But become trifty in buying a good guide book or something similar.
My greenhorn friends always ask me on pointers on how to buy an arowana fries. Apart from telling them the very basic things ( like how much cash are you willing to dish out. he he ), I always turn the table around by saying in actual sense, it's the fish that buys you. So never buy an arowana when if its the only one in shop. If a particular fish bugs you than buy it. Well just in case the fish is not up their expectation.
Great web!!
Sidek,
For your greenhorn friends, hope you will recommend them to my ebook when it is launched! 
Interesting observation but so true.
Cheers!
Steven
Changing water without using Chlorine or Chloramine neutralizer? What?
You have to to use one of these products otherwise you will end up with a very sick or dead fish!!! You maybe able to get away with a small water change with Chlorinated water if you don't use a neutralizer, but if your water supplier changes to using Chloramine, you will end up with a dead fish.
I use a product called Amquel with my 50% water change every 2 weeks for the past 3 years with excellent results. Since many water supplier also increase the pH of the tap water to 8.5 to protect metal pipes from corrosion. I would also recommend using a pH buffer to lower and stabilize the pH to near neutral (that's pH7 for those who don't know). The high pH is very hard on Arowanas. Also, the higher pH will increase the toxicity of Ammonia in your tank water.
So, if you do a small water change with untreated tap water at pH8.5 with a tank containing old water at a much lower pH that have a lot of Ammonia built up in the water, then the sudden shift to a higher pH can cause the Ammonia to be a lot more toxic. (Ammonia is a waste produced by fish and it's a lot more toxic at higher pH). Combine that with the untreated poisonous Chlorine or Chloramine, your fish won't stand a chance.
You can see the effect of untreated water if your fish slows down or stops swimming after a water change. That's a very dangerous sign.
With regular large scale water changes (with a Chloramine neutralizer and a pH buffer) your Arowanas will just glow with vigor. I know this adds more work and expense, but you will really see a difference.
Check your water pH today and on a regular basis.
I hope this short chemitry lession will help in preventing unneccessary Arowana deaths from water changes.
Neosinensis
Shit…that what I just did…since the fiter systems fail so need to clean up and change the water too…and has been couple weeks already the water is very cloudy and now my 4 years old dragon fish ~22 inches long is dying…his mouth is broken and didn't recover for a month now…I put the 1)NovAqua water conditioner 2)Brite N' Clear(clear cloudy water) 3)Pimafix(antifungal fish remedy) The water still very cloudy. Any the fish today is like at the bottom of the tank now………sigh…what else I can do?!!!!! Please help!!!!
Rilak,
You should not wait until the water becomes cloudy before considering changing the water. Iguess the first thing to do is to get a good filter system and if this is not enough, you need to change about a quarter tank of water every other week.
Only when your water is of good condition will the administering of medication going to help.
Best of luck.
Steven
Just for sharing, i have some jardini and one SR which already 1 year old now. I always change the water in the tank around 2/3 of the volume, in average once per 3 days, depend on how cloud the water is. I used the old water, minimum 3 days old. It's still ok and grow so good.
Reko,
2/3 can be a bit too much. Please be careful with that.
Steven
always have aged water made for water changes.I use a fifty gallon tank to age my water with a marineland bio wheel 400.
Distress and depress , I am in search to see how to save my "shelookgood'.Last night was alright but today of a sudden like it is gusping for air.
Change 1/3 of my 6'X3'X2.5' thanks.
Unfortunately couldn't lower the water as I have seven red parrot fish in there.
Will get some Epom salt when the fish shop is open….any other expert help will be appreciated.
Thanks ST
ST,
When it is gasping for air, it usually means that you have changed too much water.
Steven