Please help my sick arowana

  • We are currently upgrading MFK. thanks! -neo
I suggest getting rid of all the fish and telling your dad they died. Also, give your dad this website and tell him to do some research so that he can get a better understanding how to properly care for fish.
 
If you do not have plants yet, you don't have to get your lighting system at the moment but if ever you do get one, make sure your lighting is fluorescent instead of incandescent although I doubt anybody uses incandescents nowadays except for chick/duck incubators. For tanks without plants, lights are sometimes switched on for 4-6 hours for viewing pleasure. If the tank has plants, then we leave 10 hours max for lighting although my goldfish tanks could go on with about 12-14 hours since I am always around my tanks.

Fortunately for me, my tanks never had a history of green water phenomenon wherein the green floating algae appear coloring our water rather deep green and can be unsightly. They often appear as a result of a combination of too much light and too much ammonia and phosphates.

Why not just sell the blood parrot cichlids? Use the credit for necessary equipments and give yourself a good start with much better choices of fish. As much as we would like to speak the truth, this one may be better off pretending the fish you sent away, died so you won't be in too much trouble with your dad. He himself brought the problems and you were simply trying to rectify the situation for the fish's sake.
 
The Angelfish is now half dead as well. It's fins looks kind of torn up. It was fine last night but today I found it floating and not swimming at all. It's gills are working slowly and it's all but dead except that it's pectoral fins are still flapping away. It was stuck by the intake valve of the filter, that's how weak it is and it's just floating around the tank, it can't swim at all and pretty much floats. No signs of any infections besides the torn up fins, maybe it was bullied by the other fish or I completely screwed up the water through using ammonia removers and etc. I have no idea, clearly I'm not ready for this situation. Any ideas on whether or not this can be saved?
 
The arowana looks to be ok! It's no longer rubbing its mouth against the tank non stop and the mouth looks like it's healed a bit. It's also swimming around more. Thanks so much to everyone who helped me through this.

Unfortunately the Angelfish has died and the other one is barely swimming. It looks really weak, floats around a bit and is lopsided a lot. Don't think it's parasites, I almost definitely screwed up the water changes, either it stirred up too much sediments or the ammonia remover did it.

Current tank condition is 30GH, 0KH, 6pH, 0 No2, 40 No3, 0.3 ammonia/ according to the test strips. However when I run the pH test vial, it reads 7.2pH. I've cleaned the vial after each test. This is really confusing.

I'm still doing daily water changes but it doesn't seem to be doing much...
 
i am so happy to hear the arowana might be on the road to recovery..i am sorry about the angels... maybe the medicine was too strong for them... were they in the same tank.. was it attached by one of the tank mates..?
 
Glad to hear the arowana is okay. Keep up with water changes though to allow the fish to recover from the torturous poor water conditions.

I am sorry to hear about the angels.:( It doesn't look like the other one has any chance to survive. The environmental changes may be taking their toll on the angels too much.

Is it only me or have your hardness levels changed a lot? That's very strange.
 
good for the aro, i feel sad for u dude. Poor angelfish. I belive they isn't much that can be done 'bout it.
 
Lupin;3388012; said:
Glad to hear the arowana is okay. Keep up with water changes though to allow the fish to recover from the torturous poor water conditions.

I am sorry to hear about the angels.:( It doesn't look like the other one has any chance to survive. The environmental changes may be taking their toll on the angels too much.

Is it only me or have your hardness levels changed a lot? That's very strange.
i just want to say Lupin you gave great advice... i learned alot just reading through your replys....
 
Red Devil;3388007; said:
i am so happy to hear the arowana might be on the road to recovery..i am sorry about the angels... maybe the medicine was too strong for them... were they in the same tank.. was it attached by one of the tank mates..?

The Angelfish were not in the quarantine tank with the aro so no medicine was given. It was a pretty quick death, I didn't even notice that they were in trouble until one was suddenly near death. I don't think it was attacked, because the other Angelfish is having difficulty too. I definitely screwed up here. I didn't rinse the ammonia remover rocks well enough before putting it in because it gave off a huge cloud of stuff. I have removed the rocks since then. It's either the ammonia remover or I just made some rookie mistakes that the fish paid for. I'm much more careful about water changes now, don't want to stir up any sediment considering the amount of junk in the aquarium.

Lupin;3388012; said:
Glad to hear the arowana is okay. Keep up with water changes though to allow the fish to recover from the torturous poor water conditions.

I am sorry to hear about the angels.:( It doesn't look like the other one has any chance to survive. The environmental changes may be taking their toll on the angels too much.

Is it only me or have your hardness levels changed a lot? That's very strange.

I removed the ammonia remover rocks a few hours afterwards because it had such a quick drastic change in the pH/hardness/ammonia and you had said that it was starving the ammonia converting bacterias. I find it strange too that the readings have changed so drastically, I hope I'm not reading the strips wrong.

I did a 25% water change this morning, and the angel fish look a tiny bit better but I can't say for sure. I hope I don't kill the 2nd Angelfish as well...

Red Devil;3388039; said:
i just want to say Lupin you gave great advice... i learned alot just reading through your replys....

No kidding, I'm getting a crash course on how to care for an aquarium from Lupin. I couldn't have saved the aro without his advice and everyone's encouragement.

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Just put ALL the fish up for sale or free pick up on the MFK marketplace. The store won't take trades for store credit or even donations anymore because I have a sick fish. Either MFKers bail me out here or I find a decent deal on a large tank and set everything up myself. I had a hard time deciding which direction to take (get rid of the fish or take care of them) so I guess I'll just see which happens first.

Still don't know what to do with the sick Arow, nobody wants him it seems.
 
It must be the ammonia remover aside from stirring the muck that caused your angelfish's untimely demise. If you hope to clean your substrate, remove the fish from the tank so they won't be directly affected by the constant changes in their environment. This is all we can do to avoid further losses.

Just a few more thoughts...

I'd actually clean out the substrate. It seems to me if your substrate was not well oxygenated prior to your addressing this situation, then it is possible the anaerobic bacteria have built up dramatically there. Once they are disturbed, they release the toxic substance, hydrogen sulfide which is an extremely powerful acid that causes acute respiratory problems to both the owner and fish. I think it makes sense now why your hardness levels are swinging which will only endanger the lives of your fish. Hydrogen sulfide is an acid therefore eating up the buffering properties of your water.
 
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