1. How long have you had the angels.
2. What are the last few things you added to each of the tanks and when? Include any fish, plants, inverts, wood, rocks etc.
3. Do you have other tanks beside the two with the angels?
My experience is that lots of deaths in a short time have a common cause. it is usually something that entered the tank(s) fairly recently and is usually virulent. Since you are only losing angels this would tend to rule out chemical type contaminants but not specific diseases. It is possible to transfer diseases by using the same net in different tanks etc. or even on your hands when cleaning/working on tanks. Some things are even airborne and can spread even when nothing in common goes into different tanks.
1. The 3 adults I'd had for months. The babies were all acquired in the last few weeks from two different sources, so whatever it is, no doubt they brought it with them and were not quarantined long enough. Pretty sure it was the Petsmart angels. I've NEVER lost a fish from my local Petsmart before now (that's why I didn't quarantine them very long), so it came as a huge surprise. The ones from Petco, surprisingly, lasted longer than the Petsmart angels, it's one of those that is still alive. I had sworn off Petco, but just had a brand new one open a mere 3 miles from my house, so the tanks are still very clean, and the marbled angels they had were stunningly beautiful, so I took the risk.
2. No new plants, rock, etc. in the 75 where the adults were. Added a bamboo shrimp last week after quarantine. Moved him sooner than I would have liked simply because they need a more established tank to thrive, and he's doing great.
3. I do have a 38 gallon tank with platies, otos, cories, and danios. All of them are doing fine.
Will buy new nets to have tank specific nets to prevent cross contamination. The ones I have are usually dry when I go to work on a tank, but will get more just to be safe in the future.
I blame myself for getting too relaxed with quarantining Petsmart fish, but want to know what is going on so I can treat the last 2, the tanks, and know how long to wait before trying angels again if the last 2 die as well. I have really fallen in love with the marbled angels. Them appearing fine one night, eating and swimming like normal, and dead on the bottom still looking perfect (other than being dead, of course) the next day just seems so strange.
Just for extra info, the tankmates that are not succumbing to whatever this is (so far, anyway) include clown loaches, chinese algae eaters, tiger barbs, otos, and a red tailed shark in the 75 gallon, and xray tetras and neon tetras in the 29 gallon. Had put the tiniest angels in with the tetras so they could get a bit bigger before going into the semi-aggresive tank.
Should I hold off on dosing the Excel until this is resolved? It will be here any minute now. Or will that not matter/possibly help as my plants get healthier?
About to go to Petsmart and raise some ........
