Need help with anglefish

I've had my anglefish for about a year now, and I also have a pleco in the tank. He seems to have pop eye and not getting better with fixing the nitrates. He now has this bump coming out the top of one eye and on has white stuff on his head. I have heard it could be bacterial infection and that could be why the pop eye isn't getting better. Except, I dont have a hospital tank I can set up and not sure how it works to use antibiotics in a tank with another unaffected fish. If anyone has any adive it'd be greatly appreciated.

Welcome to TFF.

I won't guess when it comes to disease issues, but in order for others with this experience to help, more data will be needed. Any chance you could post a photo? And info on the tank, such as volume, total fish (species and numbers, if any beyond the two angelfish and 1 pleco), water change schedule; any substances entering the water; test results for ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, pH (as many of these as you can provide).

Okay well to be completely honest I got these fish not knowing much about how to take care of them. I've now found there's a lot more to it and I don't know how to fix any of the levels. There all not really where there supposed to be. I have one anglefish and one pleco in my 20 gallon tank. I tested and found general hardness was high as it could be, and same with nitrate. The nitrite was at 0.5 and pH was 6.0 and carbohnate hardness has been at 0-40. Not sure how to test ammonia though. I tried uploading pictures but it says there to large of a file to upload.

Kmowatt1500 said:

Okay well to be completely honest I got these fish not knowing much about how to take care of them. I've now found there's a lot more to it and I don't know how to fix any of the levels. There all not really where there supposed to be. I have one anglefish and one pleco in my 20 gallon tank. I tested and found general hardness was high as it could be, and same with nitrate. The nitrite was at 0.5 and pH was 6.0 and carbohnate hardness has been at 0-40. Not sure how to test ammonia though. I tried uploading pictures but it says there to large of a file to upload.

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It may help to explain the difference between water parameters and water conditions. Parameter refers to GH (general hardness), KH (carbonate hardness or Alkalinity), pH and temperature. Conditions refer to ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, and any other things that may affect the water quality.

Taking parameters first. If the pH is around 6 that is on the acidic side, and well suited to soft water fish species (angelfish and pleco are soft water). KH between 0 and 40 is low, which makes sense. The GH should be similar, as these three are closely related. It would help to know the number for the GH. You might be able to find this out from your water authority, check their website. The GH and KH will normally remain close to what they are in the tap water; I will leave it at that. The pH may lower naturally due to the low GH/KH if this is the case. You do not want to be attempting to adjust these parameters; this is possible, but can become very complicated, and with fish in the tank these values should remain stable and not fluctuate around as the fish can be impacted. Once you know the parameters of the source (tap) water, work with that and select fish suited.

As for ammonia, nitrite and nitrate. You can buy test kits for these. Many of us here recommend the API Master Combo liquid test kit; it has tests for these three plus pH, and is basically all you need moving forward. Ammonia and nitrite must remain zero with fish in the tank. I suspect the nitrite was during initial cycling. What is the test number for nitrate (you say it was high, but how high?).

On the photos, you can downsize photos on your PC. I am not technical, so won't get into how.

Okay I'll have to try that test kit right now I've been using API Test Strips 5 in 1. The GH is at 180 and the nitrate 200 with the nitrite at 0.5 . Thank you for the help.

For water quality report I found this from 2017. Only thing I can find in it is hardness level and its range is 80-102.

The GH is fine, the range 80-102 is still soft water. No issues then with GH, KH or pH, so do not try to adjust any of these.

The nitrite and nitrate is more serious. Nitrite should remain zero, and nitrate is much too high. Test the tap water on its own for nitrite and nitrate. If either are occurring in the tap water, that will explain some, and be one issue. If either or both are occurring within the aquarium, that is another issue we should be able to resolve.

Nitrite if zero in the tap water is within the aquarium, and a water change of 60% of the tank is advisable. Use a conditioner.

The nitrate I will leave until we know about the tap water, but the water change will help this too.

Okay did a water change last night gunna do another one today probably. I havn't tested the tap yet plan on doing that today. I had lifeguard all in 1 treatment leftover from when I was experincing ick back when I first got them. I put a treatment in for today gunna contuine for the next 5 days like it says and see if it helps cause my anglefish has stuff like ick but its coming out of his eye and skin. He seems to be losing vision from the pop eye too. Still haven't been able to find a way to shrink the photos down either.

This is what my fish looks like, kinda hard to see but the white dots near his eye is what I've been worried about. He's had the pop eye for a week now, his eyes aren't protruding as bad as they were, when I first noticed this all happening.

That is not ich. But as I said earlier, I have very little experience with disease issues and will not speculate. We must always keep in mind that every substance added to the water in the aquarium will get inside the fish naturally, and this can stress them; so if it is not going to help, it is in fact making things worse as it saps more strength from the fish and further weakens its ability to deal with things. I have never used Lifeguard, and cannot speculate on its effectiveness for any issue. That does not mean it might not help, just that I don't know. Other members with more experience treating disease may be able to assist you better with this.

I too have little experience with disease. Is it one side only or both? That reminds me a lot of something I observed on a tetra recently. I did not want to add meds without knowing what I was treating so kept a close watch. I still have no idea what it was but in around 10 days it cleared without treatment.

I have attached my thread on this in case it does look like the same. Mine was only affected on one side.
http://www.fishforums.net/threads/growth-or-injury.448853/

It had started on one side but now has progressed to both. At one point some was comimg out of his eye that was very inlarged. It seems to fall off once it comes out. It's almost like its oozing out of his skin and eyes, cause at first before the white stuff started coming out there was just a bump.