A very sad Demise

Question
Hi Alex,

After reading countless information, guides and tips from the internet and from a lot of Arowana sites, I thought that I could handle the situation when it happens to my arowana. but I was wrong.


I cant really remember nor pinpiont the main problem and the cause of death of my arowana.



A week ago "dollar" (my arowana) was fine and very active in his tank. He would even greet me each time I came home from work. Once every month, I would buy live feed for dollar as a treat. The usual 10 pieces, a mix of both guppies & and small mollies. Sometimes, i would even buy neon tetras or young gold fish. It was a monthly routine that I do to help him keep that killer instinct in him. Everything was fine since the past 3 months, even last week. But after that, i noticed some visible signs that tells me that there's something wrong with Dollar.


His eyes were not droopy but rather sinking inside. Sort of like mal-nourished. I thought that the cause may have been the live feed. But how can that be? When I first bought him when he was just 9-10cm he lasted 5 days without eating a single food at all and still looked gorgeous. It was only by this time when I fed him live fish, and when he gobbled them all up, he started showing loss of apetite after a few days. could it be that there was one fish that he got poisoned to? I doubt it. The LFS that I go to is a friend of mine and I have seen how he takes good care of all his fishes. I am a regular customer as well. The fish seller always quarantines the new fishes before selling them off to customers.


Ok so here's what I've investigated:


He ate live fish on Saturday(April 24) last week. Within 3 days, fishes were all gone. The next day (wednesday), when I fed him in the after noon with some dried krill, he ignored the food. I thought it was still full. So i waited till next day to check. I did the same thing the next day (thursday) by dropping a piece or two in the tank, but still no luck, he ignored it again and just swam passed it. This got me worried. On Friday, I checked on Dollar again and this is where I saw his eyes were sinking inside his fish skull. It looked like he suddenly lost a lot of weight within 3 days. I immediately did a water test and found no signs of any elements being on the dangerous levels so conducted a water change to see what caused this to my arowana. After doing a 30% water change treated with Tetra Easy balance and mixed with Tetra Black water solution, he suddenly calmed his fast paces slowly and gracefully. Hence I thought that the water change did the trick, but I expected too soon. An one later after doing the water change, i went back to my aquarium and checked on him. I was shocked to see Dollar in a vertical position with its head facing the gravel. I quickly held him and assisted him in swimming. I kinda directed him to swim infront of the filter where strong water current is flowing so that he would get refreshed and be cleansed. I then placed him on top of the driftwood so he would not be settled at the base gravel. I assembled my long breeder net box (DIY) that is 15 inches long and placed Dollar there to recover. I placed the netbox infront of the filter so that there is water current and lots of air supply. But there was really nothing more I could do to save him. Its all up to him now and the best thing that I could do is wait and see. Fortunately on saturday, he lasted during the day and was still breathing and wiggling. At evening time, after dinner, I checked on him. I noticed that the way he was breathing got weaker and weaker every minute. I did another water change of 20% but by the time I could even hose the water into the tank, Dollar, stop breathing with his mouth open. I thought it became unconcious, because I read in some articles that Arowanas also pass out when they cannot handle stress anymore but could still be revived (but I still doubt it). Even after major attempts and efforts on trying to revive him was totally inevitable. His days are numbered. I tried petting him on the side to see if he would respond but no luck. My arowana has passed away.



I apologize for the long email but I just thought of asking advice from you and give you an overview as to where i went wrong. I followed everything based on the forums in AROCARE and  the blogs. On my end, I totally know that there was a slim chance in saving him and that, I knew that he was going to die. I am only affected of my arowana's death is because of my 3 year old daughter. She was really devistated when she saw that the arowana had died and was crying over the loss of the its life. She was the one actually who made me buy the arowana in the first place and when it came to our home she loved that fish so much that she tried to immitate my arowana's swimming style. She actually blames me that I killed our Arowana. You know how that feels right? Anyways, I plan on doing a full maintenance on the tank and do a proper cycling of the entire tank before getting new ones. How long is it to run a full water cycle on the tank? Is it 3 weeks or 2?



Thanks again for taking the time to read my mail.

Chris.

Answer
It may have been that your arowana had a disease which is very degenerate to certain carp like fish. You seem to have fed him a healthy diet so I doubt it was that. So my first suspect is some type of disease killed him. My other suspect would be something was in your water and was unable to be picked up by your tests. If that is so then it may have been some type of poison in the water that killed him, however this is slight. I wouldnt personally blame yourself for its death as it does happen to the best of us. You seem to have taken all the necessary precautions and took generally good care of it. I do not have a problem saying that I think you should try again. Sorry to hear of your loss. But it probably was just something wrong with the fish or water. Good luck next time!