sluggish arowana

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jersey600

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Oct 5, 2007
128
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NJ, MD
all of a sudden - about 4 days ago my silver started acting sluggish. i did a 30% WC immediately and he is still acting the same. not really eating much - he sometimes grabs a krill. i am doing another WC as i am typing this but i don't know what else to do. When i was adjusting my filter outlets i reached in and i was actually able to grab the aro (softly) and he would barely try to swim away from me.

he looks healthy otherwise - no white spots, no fin damage that wasnt there already (heater burn)...

temp and water parameters are OK - just checked with the test kit
ammonia - 0
nitrate - 0
ph - 6.6
temp - 82

all the other fish in the tank are fine :screwy: help? any ideas are much appreciated. this guy has grown on me
 
Hmm maybe try heating up the tank a little bit.
 
ugh - he's not looking good. barely swimming, sometimes resting sideways. and when he does swim he runs into things. poor guy - hope he makes it. maybe he ate some bad sushi?
 
jersey600;2256984; said:
ugh - he's not looking good. barely swimming, sometimes resting sideways. and when he does swim he runs into things. poor guy - hope he makes it. maybe he ate some bad sushi?
Click to expand...
Ok from the signs, you need to get some aquabuddies bacteria killer. This will help him recover from his swim bladder problem. It did with my fish when he was swimming sideways anyway
 
he's dead.. died in my hands literally. he was rapidly getting worse and staying on his side for extended periods of time so i took him and held him in front of the filter outlet to get as much water flowing past his gills as possible. he eventually started spazzing and died..

tank is so empty w/o him..

15" - pics to follow
 
i feel sad!
i feel sad especially when massive fish die:(
sometimes thing slike that hit hard and hit quick!

now you know next time to look for warning signs.

my sympathies to you!!
 
thanks for the well wishes. so my girlfriend is an environmental chemist with a focus in marine life and has worked in a NOAA lab for the past 2-3 years. i figured the best thing to do was to let her dissect the aro and maybe get a better chance of understanding what happened.

gills - perfect

liver - normal size but redder than it should be (her words)

stomach - fine but had two pebbles from the aquarium floor in there

heart - abnormal, there was an artery that had swelled to the size of the heart and was discolored white. maybe there was a blood clot? some defect from birth i would imagine.

air bladders - way out of wack, too big - may have happened just before death and may not be the cause of death

my guess is heart failure due to that abnormality. I do have pics on my home PC (i'm at work at the moment - shh) and i'll post them up later - before and after the autopsy. maybe someone else can help explain what that thing is on the heart once i post them..

i'll be getting another aro soon. unfortunately the only retailers that have had some for over a week (and over 5" in length) are 1.5 hours away from me. also checking out a 20" black aro, but i'm not sure of that guy since i would rather enjoy watching the fish grow under my care.
 
Sad sad sad my man. sorry for your loss.
 
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