My Poor Angle. Rapid Breathing

[TracyC]

Hi everyone,

Hoping someone might have an idea whats going on with my Angel. I've got a 46G bowfront aquarium. Its well established and I've got 4 neons, 2 med sized angels, 4 various species of platys, 2 young australian rainbows and a 'looneytune' of a danio. Last night, when I approached the aquarium, I was surprised to be greeted by only one 1 of my angles.. they are usually right up at the front to say hi. When I noticed the other one, he was up in the back corner of the aquarium.. and breathing really quickly. I did a 25% water change and increased the temp to 80. This morning, he's hiding more, his dorsal fin is half down and not nice and perky like usual and still rapidly breathing so I added some aquarium salt and turned off the light. He has come out of hiding a couple of times, but when he does, the other angel is at him straight away so he runs back to his hiding spot. The only thing thats new, besides them (I've had them since just before xmas), is that I bought a peice of driftwood which has since turned the water brownish. The LFS said thats perfectly OK, and actually good for the fish. I've been very regular with my water changes (probably more than I normally am) because of the colour. I've been doing 1/3 weekly water changes in an attempt to clear up the water.

I have no idea whats up with my angel and obviously I dont want to loose it and I'm thinking this is where its headed. Any ideas what it could be? Ohh, I forgot to mention, I've got a HOB marineland filter so theres a good amount of current in the aquarium so I think the o2 levels should be ok.

I've got a small video I took.. the quality is really bad, lots of reflection yada yada yada but I think you should be able to see him/her...hopefully

Your comments, suggestions and opinions are most greatly appreciated

 

[N0body Of The Goat]

Staying a a corner, often a top corner, is a classic submissive sign when another fish is bullying it. The heavy breathing is another sign of stress.

Did you buy both the Angelfish recently, or add a random one to an established one? Either is not a good idea, Angelfish should either be bought as singletons or start with a group of six and let a pair naturally form from the group before considering rehoming the others.

 

[TracyC]

Ohhh crud... really? I bought them together at the same time, about a week before xmas. They, for the most part, seemed to be getting along just fine.. with the random semi-aggressive mood swing, but nothing realllly bad. Do you think if I ran out and bought another this might break up the 'spat' if this is the problem?

also, so you lean more towards submissive than potential gill disease or something like that?

argh.. I love em both sooo much.

 

[techen]

Buying another would only make the problem worse rather than better. I suggest taking one back to your LFS and just keeping one. I have one angel fish in my 53 gallon and it's fine. Couldn't be happier, I'd never risk putting another angel in there, There known to chase and abuse the subby angel until it dies, which it seems is whats happening to you.

 

[BerryAttack]

with the heavy breathing i would add in a bubblier to the other corner of the tank to not disturb him to add in more oxygen to see if that will help with his breathing to slow down. also you can add a separator to the tank, and if the angel that is always bullied comes up swims around and acts normal then it was just because of the bullying of the other angel.

my trick to see which is male or female, sometimes it works sometimes it doesn't. is to check if the angels are fatter more than others. if the fish aren't over fed then it should be easier to tell, males will stay slim and the female should look "fat" because they have eggs. and if they are doing to lay them then there will be a (forgot the name) tube sticking out near the anal fin that is much larger then the males that should come out when egg laying will be in a day or so.

by doing that you can see if both are the same gender, then if they are probably most likely because of the aggression then you'll need to rehome one.

 

[TracyC]

Thank you SOOOO much everyone.. man alive.. had I known before I bought both of them.. I wouldnt have bought 2.. now it looks more and more like I've got to rehome one.. that SUCKS!!! I think I'll try using the seperator (if I can get my hands on one thats made for a bowfront) and try that.. one is bigger/chubbier than the other, and if thats the case, I think its the smaller one thats going after the bigger (poss female) one. The LFS also suggested rearranging the tank to see if its a territorial thing.. ugh! I hate unhappiness

Thanks again all

 

[techen]

I'd ask if you could return it back to the LFS, A seperator would work but it means halfing your tank size which is silly in my eyes.

I doubt very much that rearranging stuff would help unless your tank is heavy planted with tons of hiding spots, You'll find your angel will just shove in and claim any spots the other angel wants, It will never end

 

[BerryAttack]

before rehoming have the angel happy and moving around so that when it moves then the possibility of it dying is lessened.

with the separator you can easily make one yourself, because it is a bow front the chance of finding one might be slim, so you can always make one out of mesh, string, and twings or something.
and putting the fish into a breeders net or something similar will most likely stress it even more and probably cause it to die