Does this Silver Arowana look sick?

[Onion01]

what about bio spira everyone seems to say it works?

don't try to cut corners. it will come back to haunt you. Do an old fashioned cycle. Either with fish, fishless, or seeding with material from an established tank

 

[Nemesis]

Is there anything I can do other than give up the fish?

 

[stingraybob]

Is there anything I can do other than give up the fish?

you can slowly watch your fish die and chalk it up to a lesson learned i guess...

 

[dragonfish18]

do small water changes to let out the ammonia and let $2.00 worth of feeders fish cycle the tank...they poop alot and live through the worst water ive ever seen.

 

[rallysman]

The best thing you can do is go to a friend or a pet store and ask them to clean their filters out in a bucket of dechlorinated water. Immediately (assuming the water is the same temp) add that nasty brown sludgy water to your tank and let your filter clean it out. IME it's the best way to jump start a tank. I've done it several times when I had to move fish to a tank without a cycled filter.

The water will look nasty, you filter will look nasty, but it will add the bacteria needed to convert the fish waste into nitrate. When you're reading 0 ammonia, 0 nitrite, and start seeing nitrate, you're cycled. This will help speed that process up. However, I don't think the aro would make it through that transition.

 

[Bderick67]

Is there anything I can do other than give up the fish?

No, baby/young arowana are hard enpugh to raise in pristine water conditions. Raising one during the cycling of a tank has very low odds of sucsess.

Best thing is to research and learn the nitrogen cycle as it pertains to the home aquaria. Get your tank cycled and then get the fish that you can properly house in that size tank.

Here is a link on the nitrogen cycle and cycling a tank; http://www.fishlore.com/NitrogenCycle.htm

 

[perfect_prefect]

The best thing you can do is go to a friend or a pet store and ask them to clean their filters out in a bucket of dechlorinated water. Immediately (assuming the water is the same temp) add that nasty brown sludgy water to your tank and let your filter clean it out. IME it's the best way to jump start a tank. I've done it several times when I had to move fish to a tank without a cycled filter.

The water will look nasty, you filter will look nasty, but it will add the bacteria needed to convert the fish waste into nitrate. When you're reading 0 ammonia, 0 nitrite, and start seeing nitrate, you're cycled. This will help speed that process up. However, I don't think the aro would make it through that transition.

do what he said it is the best way that i know of also. the cichlids might be ok if you get some BB growing right away. also if you do a water change because you have ammonia show up you are slowing down the cycling process. the BB needs the ammonia to grow and start producing nitrites, then more BB grows feeding on the nitrites making nitrates, you dont want to do a water change until your ammonia and nitrites are at 0 and you have a spike in nitrates. if you do you are just slowing the process. if you can get a jump start from someone or from the lfs, your cichlids should be fine. if they start getting sick just add the aquarium salt. do NOT bump your temp up if there is ammonia present in the tank as the heat will make the ammonia exponentially worse. if for some reason your fish should get sick with ich or some sort of wound sometime when you have a cycled tank you would want to add salt (either aquarium salt, or NON iodized table salt it is the same thing only 1/10th the cost) and bump the temp up to about 82. at this point in time the most important thing for you to do is to rehome the aro, and snag yourself some bio media with BB on it. do you know anyone with a pond? possibly someone with a canister filter full of bio balls?

 

[Nemesis]

do what he said it is the best way that i know of also. the cichlids might be ok if you get some BB growing right away. also if you do a water change because you have ammonia show up you are slowing down the cycling process. the BB needs the ammonia to grow and start producing nitrites, then more BB grows feeding on the nitrites making nitrates, you dont want to do a water change until your ammonia and nitrites are at 0 and you have a spike in nitrates. if you do you are just slowing the process. if you can get a jump start from someone or from the lfs, your cichlids should be fine. if they start getting sick just add the aquarium salt. do NOT bump your temp up if there is ammonia present in the tank as the heat will make the ammonia exponentially worse. if for some reason your fish should get sick with ich or some sort of wound sometime when you have a cycled tank you would want to add salt (either aquarium salt, or NON iodized table salt it is the same thing only 1/10th the cost) and bump the temp up to about 82. at this point in time the most important thing for you to do is to rehome the aro, and snag yourself some bio media with BB on it. do you know anyone with a pond? possibly someone with a canister filter full of bio balls?

man your right on point. the arowana is getting light ich. I already added salt(6 spoons=55g) and slowly brought the temp to 84. He seems to be swimming fine, and still has an appetite(actually waits at top when I open the hood). The parrot is swimming really wierd on the bottom of the tank(kind of flops to side and stays in same place), it also hasnt wanted to eat all day. I recall a lfs trying to sell me bio balls the other day when I asked them about boi spira. I'll try it tommorrow. My EBJD is the most energetic and is doing everything normally. I just retested the water and now have 0.25 ammonia, 0 nitrate, 0 nitrite and still a ph of 6(even after adding api ph-up). Im going to leave the water and let it cycle as you said. I was going to get crushed coral as someone here advised, but the lfs strongly advised me to use ph-up because crushed coral will raise it too much. Is this true? Again thanks for the feedback.

Ive also opened another thread in arowanas trying to find someone in the NYC area who would like to take it off my hands.

 

[perfect_prefect]

if you have ammonia present in your tank get your temperature down. heat makes the ammonia alot worse. like i said in the last post, dont bump your temp until the ammonia zeros out. as soon as your ammonia drops and you have a nitrite spike bump the temp up.

 

[rallysman]

but the lfs strongly advised me to use ph-up because they make more money off of it.

fixed that quote for ya

Using chemicals like that is not a good idea IMO. You can add small amounts of crushed coral and test it until you get the result you're looking for. Adding the chemical can cause a rapid swing in the PH which is never good.