African Arowana

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Brandybottle

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Jul 28, 2009
154
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Singapore
Hi, my friend has an african arowana that is not very healthy. It swims sideways and is not very active (yes how can an african arowana not be active?!) I offered to take it in and I've put it into a 30g tank, 2m long, 30cm wide and 25cm tall approx. It got a bit better but I still don't know what caused it to be sick at all. So if anybody could enlighten me on how it was sick and what I could do to make it better, that would be nice, at least it wouldn't die.

However, I think it has something to do with water quality because my friend did water changes (just about 10%) about every 2 days cause that guy fed the african arowana market prawn. He tore it up, threw it into the tank and left it there for the whole day, making the water quite bad.
 
Never leave uneaten food, scoop it out after a minute if it didn't eat it.

Swimming sideways? hmm, any tank inhabitants that are middle/bottom dwellers?
 
Not exactly correct on the removal of uneaten food. Here's the regimen I've used on several batches of afaros I've raised:

The african arowana, Heterotis niloticus, is extremely time-consuming to keep alive as juvies in aquaria. They basically have to have access to food constantly until they reach about 8" and their bodies start holding reserve fat. These are filter feeding fish that can reach 3ft in length.
I kept mine going by keeping them in bare tanks with sponge filters. The sponge filters were beneficial in that they attracted food to their surface which the aros grazed on between feedings. Water chemistry is hard and alkaline with rift lake salts added to the tank. Water changes are every other day and sponge filters each are rinsed off on alternating days to keep spoiled food off the aros grazing areas. The tank receives direct sunlight to 1 side for an hour or 2 a day. The water is pretty green (to match their native waters).
Once the afaros reach a foot long, I'll probably move them from the 120s to the 360 and stop the sunlight/algae routine. Young can be kept together for only a short time before they become intolerant of each other and begin fighting. As sub-adults, they're tolerant of conspecifics again. I have other small growout species in with my young aros and they've never bothered them. These fish are active in all areas of the tank and are always on the move.
Foods consist of frozen bloodworms, mysis shrimp, brine shrimp plus, daphnia, cyclop-eeze, commercial dense culture crumbles, and mosquito larvae.
This is an awesome species if you can resolve yourself to being extremely busy on their maintenance for the first 6-8 months or so.

afaro2.jpg
 
Thanks for the advice, no there are NO tankmates, except for a guppy I put inside for fun. It is now getting worse though... It is overturned, halfways like going to die, swimming on the top.

I've put it into another smaller tank(10g) and added some salt, any other advice? Please???? Its about to die~@@@@ Like maybe any medicine would be able to help?
 
What size is this aro? I'll consider it a juvie since it's in a 10. If it hasn't eaten for the past couple of days, your chances are grim. With no indication of disease, there's no medicine to add to help with starvation and malnutrition. Juvie afaros quickly fail if not able to graze throughout the day.
Your only shot may be to add daphnia (live, frozen, FD) and hope for the best. The salt will help along with maintaining 80F aquarium temp. Good luck.
 
sorry for your loss
 
Hawaiianfishkee;3460130; said:
no offense... one of the less attractive types of aros..
Click to expand...

Even though I happen to think that the afrowana is not one of the ugliest arowanas, I think that its the only ugly species of arowana, BUT- I dont think that brandybottles "sick-dying-dead" thread was your best outlet for voicing an opinion that you obviously felt we all needed to know right now
 
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