Angel Aids

[Xtech]

I had 2 angels that died with in 2 weeks. They both just stopped eating and now my 3rd angel has stopped eating too. All other fish are happy and healthy, no deaths (in a community tank). There are no visbal signs with the angels except they started to hide more near the plants. I've had them for about 3 months and they seemed perfectly healty.

I've been out of the hobby for about 20 years now and Angel aids had just started back then. Now that I'm back into fishkeeping the only thing I could suspect would be the angel aids disease which I know a little about.
Do angels stop eating when they have this disease? Is there anything I can do to prevent this disease? How common is this disease now days?

Here are my tank stats:
ph 6.5
temp 77
ammonia 0
nitrites 0
nitrates 40ppm
kh 3deg
gh 4deg

The tank has been established now for 8 months and is heavily planted.

 

[IMCL85]

First can u give me ur tank size, fish list and how u offen u maintain ur tank? I see that u got a pretty high nitrate reading from ur water stats. Try to do a wc to bring it down to <20. High nitrate can cause stress to angel. I have a pair right now in my 25g they r the most attive fish there is in my tank. Its not right for angel to hide. I have another 3 over on a q tank right now will be put to this tank after a few more weeks. And they r just as attive so for now just try to do more wc like 3-4 days a change. Usually in a heavily planted tank nitrate reading should be less then 10. My current 25g and 20g have arround 10-15 nitrate.

 

[Xtech]

First can u give me ur tank size, fish list and how u offen u maintain ur tank? I see that u got a pretty high nitrate reading from ur water stats. Try to do a wc to bring it down to <20. High nitrate can cause stress to angel. I have a pair right now in my 25g they r the most attive fish there is in my tank. Its not right for angel to hide. I have another 3 over on a q tank right now will be put to this tank after a few more weeks. And they r just as attive so for now just try to do more wc like 3-4 days a change. Usually in a heavily planted tank nitrate reading should be less then 10. My current 25g and 20g have arround 10-15 nitrate.

It's a 28g BF. I do w/c once a week. The problem is I have nitrates in my tap water, 25ppm. The fish are 6 rummy noses, 2 corys, 12 neons, 1 swordtail, 3 rasboras, 1 redtail shark, 3 black mollie, 1 blue ram, 2 honey gouramis. 1 bamboo shrimp.

The angel didn't start to shy away until they stopped eating. Normaly they were in the front of the tank swimming for the 3 months I had them.

Is the Angel aids still around at all?


I know it's a fully stocked tank, but nobody ever harrased the angels. No nips, no nothing.

 

[IMCL85]

Right now I dont think there much beside q tank them away from other. And see how they do. A 28g tank after planting and substrate will probably hold about 25g of water and u have like 32+ fish inside. An overly crowed tank will causing alot of problem in ur case nitrate. Even no other fish r harrasing them they will still under heavily stress once nitrate hit a high lvl and thats call nitrate poisoning. Thats probably the cost. Since you doing ur water change on a regular base try to do it more frequently like 2-3 times a week more then normal even there is nitrate in ur tap water but they r still lower then those from ur tank right now so water change and alot of water change is the key. Before I have 2 discus have the similar problem with ur angel which later I discover was under pressure by angel fish that kept with them during feeding they never eat anything and also hiding eventurally waste away. After that I remove the remain 4 of my discus to another tank which they r kept alone and they start to eat and acting normal again. Hope this help good luck to ya and keep an update on ur angel for us. Hope they healthy again.

 

[Tolak]

The thing to look for is fin rot, often severe with discus plague, discus aids, angel plague, or whatever you may call it. http/fishenthusiast.com/discusplague.html offers a good explaination of what this disease is about. http/www.angelfish.net/yabbse/index.php?...y;threadid=6391 talks more about how it is/has been affecting angels recently.

If there is no major fin rot involved, just hiding towards the back of the tank, & not eating, it is probably an internal protizoan parasite of the heximita variety. This is what I do when they behave the way you have described.


Put the angel in a quar tank, I usually use a 10 gallon. Increase the temp over a day or so to 90-94F. Treat daily with 40 mg/gallon metronidazole, with 50% water changes daily. If the fish isn't eating, don't feed for the first 3 days. After 3 days, get some frozen brine shrimp. Take a portion about the size of a few match heads, and sprinkle on some metro. You have to eyeball this one, make the shrimp look kind of like a tiny powdered donut. Once it thaws, mix it in & feed. Sometimes they still don't eat for a few days, but once they start to mouth the food & spit it out, the meds seem to get in their system real good. Continue medicating the water & food for 7-10 days.

Metronidazole is sold as flagyl, het-a-mit, and a few other names I can't recall offhand, used to treat hexamita & hole in the head. They usually suggest 20mg/gallon, this often isn't enough. Metro deteriorates in 8 hours, so you could do twice daily water changes. I've done this on the weekends when I have time.

Don't let the high temp scare you, angels can handle higher than that. I've had them as high as 98 due to a broken heater. Just make sure to have only angels in the tank at that temp. Make sure to have plenty of aeration also, as warmer water holds less O2.

I've also added epsom salt while using metro, this helps with any constipation issues, cleans out the digestive tract. I start with 1 teaspoon per 10 gallons of water, increasing by 1 teaspoon daily for 2 more days to bring it up to 3 teaspoons per gallon. You will have to adjust how much you use when doing water changes. You may want to give this a try.

Besides treating plenty of angels this way, I just got an oscar to start eating yesterday after a week of meds. Only brought the temp up to around 88F, though it peaked at around 92 for a day. Same medication & epsom routine, I just got in a new supply of metro today, as I was down to 1,000 mg tops. http/www.fishyfarmacy.com/products2.html Is the place to order meds if you are in the U.S. 50 grams for $20 beats any price. I keep a supply on hand, this is a comon thing with breeding angels, eventually you have a sick fish or two out of hundreds.

HTH!

Tolak

 

[Xtech]

Thank you both and especially you Tolak.

I bought the the medicine and put him the quar tank today. I hope it's not to late for him. I should of asked for help a few days ealier when he first acted funny.

I was happy to find more info on the angel aids that you linked. I was curious as to the latest news about the plague.

Thanks again,
XTech