# angelfish sick



## girlofgod (Aug 22, 2006)

what is it when you have a fish that is still "breathing" but cant swim? i am familiar with swim bladder, and i'm pretty sure that's when they swim upside down, and funny, etc. but this one i just got yesterday, and she's not swimming at all...she also hasnt eaten since i put her in the tank. i would like to save her if at all possible. i currently have moved her to a quarintine tank, but i'm not quite sure how to treat her. i am keeping the temp high, have added melafix, and a pinch of salt. what else should i do? does this sound familiar to anyone else? 

she has no marks, or sores, or anything on her to show that she's sick, fins are perfectly intact, etc.

47 gallon column
3 other angels
2 danios
ph 7.8
nitrates 10
nitrites 0
ammonia 0
temp 82

bri


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## girlofgod (Aug 22, 2006)

nevermind..it died...i dont know what happened..i brought two of them home, and the other one is fine...oh well

bri


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## girlofgod (Aug 22, 2006)

i would like to know if anyone has any info about this...or what they think it might be...just curious...thanks!

bri


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## joeshmoe (Aug 2, 2006)

i had two angel fish one died over night of the same day and the other one died 4 days later. they were pooping stringy so i think it was internal


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## crazie.eddie (Sep 1, 2006)

Sorry to hear. I'm currently treating one of my original angels for swim bladder, but due to it's old age, it probably will not be any help, from what I have been told. I had it for over 7 years already (lifespan of angels is about 5 years) and I'm not giving up on it's treatment. I've been treating it for about 4 weeks now. Luckily, it's been eating through the use of a turkey baster, which it's already been familiar with.


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## bettababy (Oct 12, 2006)

The lifespan for a standard freshwater angelfish is 15 - 20 yrs.
The problem almost sounds as if it could have been stress related. Angelfish are not as sturdy as some people claim they are. Was there a size difference between the angel that died and the others? How much decoration is in the tank?
Angelfish can stress quite easily, and are sensitive to change, water params, and temperature fluctuations. What kind of acclimation did you do for the new angels? Were they in the same bag togther when you brought them home and acclimated them?
It's going to be impossible to say for sure what happened now that it has died and we weren't able to obtain an autopsy. There are at least a dozen different illnesses it could have had, so I would suggest watching the others closely over the next week or 2.


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## girlofgod (Aug 22, 2006)

i could send you one for an autopsy...i have an extra fish...lol....actually, two have since died...and i have two left, my original large angel, and a small new addition. there was a size difference between ONE of the angels...and the other three...the three were small. there is a LOT of plant coverage in my tank, so much i can hardly find them sometimes...so i know that wasnt the issue..the were acclimated on different days...i brought one "batch" or two fish, of angels home sometime last week and i acclimate them for about 30 minutes, letting them float in the main tank and then adding water from the tank every 5-10 minutes. one of the fish from the first batch died a couple of days ago...so i took it back to the store and brought home the "second batch" or 2 more fish, leaving a grand total of 4 angelfish in my tank. i figured the 2nd batch i brought home would do fine because i talked to the woman at the pet store (some family owned place and theirs tanks were immaculate) and she said that she had had those two fish for over 2 weeks, so i thought they would live. as soon as i got them home i noticed the striped one was hiding in the corner alot (i thought due to stress of a new environment, etc) and when she finally came out i noticed she was having trouble swimming, and then i put her in a hospital tank where i raised the temp and added a little melafix and salt, and she died. ThEN i noticed that one of my other angels (from the FIRST batch) started swimming funny and hiding, and i came in and found him on the filter. so i have two left, and they seem to be doing fine...i am going to take a water sample in today and ask for it to be done with the liquid master kit, which i dont have...anyways...any guesses?


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## bettababy (Oct 12, 2006)

I'm interested in knowing the water params... especially pH.
Until I know those, I'll wait to say more.


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## JouteiMike (Oct 7, 2006)

She has them posted up in the first post Bettababy...

ph 7.8
nitrates 10
nitrites 0
ammonia 0
temp 82 

I think the pH has something to do with it. Angelfish thrive in more acidic water conditions in the wild. Your pH is too basic. Try and get it down closer to neutral, and if you can, slightly acidic (6.5 - 6.9) would be ideal.

How hard is your water? Angelfish prefer soft water, around 0.6-1.2 dH


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## girlofgod (Aug 22, 2006)

my ph is about 7.4-7.6 according to the liquid master test kit...all my params were listed in my first post, also, although my ph is a little high, my water is very soft...which is weird...it could just be the fish weren't going to live anyways...cuz the guy at the lfs said that all of the other angels that came in with batch 1 died in the tank...which is sad =( ohwell..

bri


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## bettababy (Oct 12, 2006)

Joutiemike,
I was waiting for the new results she said she was going to get... I'm interested to see if there is a difference after using the liquid kits.
Also, girlofgod, as for the autopsy, thanks for the offer to send me one, but the body would need to be fresh for me to get any accurate information. Fish bodies decompose quickly, and even if frozen and shipped to me, it would thaw during shipping, leaving it unusable. If we were closer to each other, I'd surely offer to do the autopsy for you, as I think this could give us a lot of answers.
My last autopsy was on a cownose sting ray (saltwater) that died at the store here. Everyone had different ideas on cause of death, but it wasn't until we actually did the autopsy that we found the real answers.. it had bled to death. Being in such a large pool of water, there was no way to see this, as any signs of bleeding were washed away in the water. The ray had come in with a severe gill fluke problem, and after rubbing itself on the rocks so much, it had caused itself some severe lacerations which were difficult to see until we began the disection. My husband and I had done everything possible to save that ray. Another autopsy we had done on a customer's koi was similar in results... they had died for unexplained reasons, and outwardly showed no signs of illness. Once inside, we could see the damage done to the internal organs by toxins someone had poured into her pond... after seeing the damage to the organs, we were then able to retest the water for specific toxins, and quickly found the problem. In both cases, the bodies were fresh, so it wasn't too difficult to get results.
In your case, I am suspecting the answers lie within the internal organs, but without a fresh or well preserved and almost fresh body, there is no way to tell that based on the symptoms you listed. Things such as lack of oxygen, damage to certain organs caused by water quality or other illnesses, internal parasites, etc, are all things we'd be looking for based on the symptoms you listed. And... without a trained eye and knowledge of the fishes internal parts, and effects on them, it's impossible to coach someone through an autopsy. Without the access to a microscope, some things are not visible to the naked eye.
I will still wait to see what the new test results show in your water quality. One other thing I'm curious about is the change in pH from the store's tank to yours. Your tank may have offered the proper environment, but if it was different than the conditions of the store tank, shock could still be an issue.
I would suggest keeping a close eye on the other fish, and let me know if you see any of the same symptoms showing up in the remaining angels. Some stores will keep angelfish at a higher pH level, as many breeders of standard angels work with pH levels up as high as 8.2
8.2 to 7.8 may not look like much to us in numbers, but to a fish, that is a big difference. Add to it the stress of moving... and many things could happen. Again, I am just giving possibilities, it's impossible for me to say for sure.


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## Ziek (Oct 17, 2006)

most angels are actually kept closer to 7 if not a little under. 7.8 would be very high for an angelfish. they are often found with discus in the wild in areas around 6.5. angelfish are able to live in higher ph than discus but are still very sensitive to those higher ph levels. since the surviving ones are already in the higher ph if they have acclimated to it it would do more harm than good to change it but in the future when getting angelfish try getting the ph down to atleast 7.2 as well as hold off on medicating till you know what you are medicating.


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## joeshmoe (Aug 2, 2006)

my lfs ph is 8.0 and there angels look fine are all alive


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## Lupin (Aug 2, 2006)

joeshmoe said:


> my lfs ph is 8.0 and there angels look fine are all alive


It would be interesting if the test kits are also accurate or not. That pH would suit the Tanganyikans more than the South American cichlids. Scalare angelfish have long been domestically-bred and will adapt to wide ranges of water parameters. But I still find them to thrive better in lower pH than high. On the side note, the words "thrive" and "survive" are different. When we say "thrive", fish tend to do well and are unproblematic under your care. To say "survive", this would mean a fish living in borrowed time rather than for long.


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## joeshmoe (Aug 2, 2006)

they use api test witch i use too


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## girlofgod (Aug 22, 2006)

my fish store also uses api and the ph was reading between 7.6 and 7.8...and i believe he said they keep their tanks there about 7.8...so ph shock between tanks wouldnt have been an issue i dont believe... but you never know. my new stats are as follows

ph-7.6-7.8
ammonia - 0
nitrate - 0
nitrite - 0


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## Lupin (Aug 2, 2006)

Zero nitrates?:blink:
These following would be the factors.
1. Live plants-They can used up nitrates pretty fast.
2. No bacteria-That would be impossible and even then the ammonia could have spiked.
Can't figure out what other factors would be. Adding potassium nitrate may be your option. Low nitrates will often cause growth of BGA(blue-green algae).


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## girlofgod (Aug 22, 2006)

oh...sorry..i didnt meant to post 0...i meant to post *10* nitrates..guess i left off the 1


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## Lupin (Aug 2, 2006)

girlofgod said:


> oh...sorry..i didnt meant to post 0...i meant to post *10* nitrates..guess i left off the 1


Oh ok. Thank goodness.:mrgreen:


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## bettababy (Oct 12, 2006)

Ziek, just a note for you... all of the standard angelfish found around here are bred and kept at pH of 8.0, and they thrive. I know one of the breeders that supplies our biggest LFS, and his pH is never under 7.8.
The altum angels that come in are always kept in softer water, but most of those are wild caught. The pH for those runs 6.8 - 7.2 and they thrive in that. The store has never had any big issues with angelfish in the past 10 yrs. I have kept angelfish (standard) at 8.0, have 1 now in my 180 amazon tank, with a pH of 8.0, and never a problem.


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## Ziek (Oct 17, 2006)

either way it is still a possability and angelfish do live in lower temperatures from the wild. they may be keeping them and they may be surviving in those ph levels but they would look better and be much healthier in their appropriate levels around 6.5


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## bettababy (Oct 12, 2006)

Wild angelfish, yes... but the angelfish I speak of, when attempting to put them into "soft water" with a pH of about 7.0, they all died. This was the reason we found out what they had been bred in, because we had no idea why fish that looked perfectly healthy were all dead within 24 hrs. What a fish is bred in can say a lot. My boss at one time attempted to acclimate some of them down to lower pH slowly, over a period of a few weeks, because a customer wanted to put them into a soft water tank... again, all of the fish died once the pH hit 7.5 Those from that same shipment that were kept in 8.0 standard tap water did fine.
The store I worked at did a lot of independent research that other stores do not. We also went through an extensive training program that other stores don't do. Our training was constant so that we were always up to date on new products and new information that scientists were finding out about various fish and their habitats. If other LFS's would do 1/2 of the training we had, there would be many more happy customers and many more happy, healthy fish. We worked closely with our local breeders, learning what they were doing and why it was working, how to replicate it, and even at times, how to enhance/alter it to make things even better.
We did a lot of in house breeding, also. Our piranah display was a good example... we were selling piranahs (babies) to our distributors, regularly... hundreds at a time. Because we had limited space and the breeding could get quite expensive, we were limited to what we were allowed to breed ourselves, but there got to be quite a bit after a while.


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