New Angelfish - 1 Dead, 1 Sick

[melh1979]

Hi I wondered if anyone could help me please?

First some background - have a 240l tank set up with live plants since July. We added the fish which were in our old tank about a month ago - 5 Lemon Tetras, 4 Ottos, 2 Platies and 6 Bandit Cories. Everything was going well so we decided to get a few more fish last Saturday. We got 5 more Lemon Tetras and 3 Angelfish. We got 1 Marble Angel and 2 which are striped with a silver background. The Marble and 1 of the stripy ones were about 1 1/2 inches tall and the other stripy one larger at about 2 1/2 inches.

Everything was going well until Friday when I noticed the marble seemed to be gasping rather alot - it had been eating fine (some flakes, frozen daphnia, and dried bloodworm tried out over the week) and I couldn't see any external problems. On Saturday it was hiding at the back of the tank and I checked all the water stats which were Ammonia 0, Nitrite 0, Nitrate 10, pH 7.4.

When we got home yesterday the smaller stripy one was hiding at the back too and when it came out it had clamped fins and didn't look too happy. It showed a little interest in the food but didn't eat any. When I searched for the marble Angel I saw it dead on the bottom. I had a look at it but I couldn't see any noticeable problems on the outside of the fish.

The larger Angel seems fine and eating well but I'm now worried about the smaller one. Is there anything I have done which sounds wrong or rings warning bells with any of you experts? Is there anything we can do to help the smaller Angel?

Thanks

 

[SJ2K]

Well your water stats seem fine, the only alarm bell ringing when you mentioned gasping would be low oxygen levels? but obviously this would effect all fish, so potentially an infection or disease? That is a real stab in the dark though im afraid, im sure somone far more learned will come along shortly and put us straight

 

[melh1979]

Yes I did think of that but as you said I would have expected the other fish to be having problems too. The small stripy Angel did come out from hiding last night when I fed them but he didn't eat anything and is gasping alot - he's not hanging around at the top of the tank or anything just moving his mouth alot. I can't see anything wrong externally to work out what could be wrong to work out what to medicate.

 

[brayer]

Hi, I have a 350L tank and quite a while ago I had a fish with simular problems to yours, not eating, pale in color, fast gill movement etc etc, I reaaly thought I was going to lose him @ one stage but what I did was increase the ariation ( sorry can't spell to save my life !! ) by investing in a bigger pump with two out lets, thus I now have two large air stones working @ the same time, any way amzingly after a short period of time, this fish had fully recovered, now I can't stop him eating !! I'm not saying this will work for you but remember you have quite a large volume of water there so the more CO2 you can get working in there the better, it worked for me, and as already stated your stats look fine although keep an eye on them, because as you know any sudden change in water conditions nearly always points towards a problem.


Hope this helps

brayer.

 

[melh1979]

The poor little stripy Angel died last night. At the moment the remaining larger one (we have named Gabe) looks okay and is eating healthily so fingers crossed. Is it okay to keep just one Angelfish? I'd still like to know what was wrong with them though.

 

[dave1987]

what are you using to air the water i have a 450 litre tank have an air stone at one and and an air operated ornament at the other and that works fine hows the other angel doing they are my favourites fish i like the way they come to you when your at the tank and mine will eat out of my hand

 

[melh1979]

We're not using anything but there is quite alot of surface movement from the filter outlet - the other fish don't seem to be having a problem with it.
The remaining one looks fine - not gasping and he's eating well - always the first to the front of the tank when I go up to it! I hope he's okay I've got quite attached already.

 

[brayer]

Hi again, It sounds like some kind of unfortunate problem with that one fish But I would still suggest getting an air stone or two up and running it will only improve co2 quality in your tank, which in the end is very good for the


Good Luck with it all.

 

[xxBarneyxx]

Just to stop any confusion its not CO2, just O2 (CO2 is something completely different and while you can add it to tanks to improve plant growth adding it to a tank with low O2 would cause more problems).

You dont need to have any airstones running as long as you have good surface movement (though some species of fish prefer faster moving, high O2 water in which case airstones can help). Airstones mainly increase the oxygen in the water by increasing surface movement which increases the exchange of gasses at the water surface.

The tank should certainly have been big enough, none of the other fish should have given them any problems and the water parameters seem fine. Only things I can think of are:

The fish where not in great condition to start with and the stress of moving from the shop to the tank was enough to fish them off.

The bigger Angel may have been aggressive to the smaller ones which stressed them too much.

Unfortunetly sometimes you do get fish that die for no apparent reason. Most of the time this is due to the hundreds of miles they are transported over to get them to the fish shop and then the fish shop not holding them for long enough before selling (sometimes even when they have been held for a long time in the LFS and look healthy just the stress of being netted again and taken home can be enough to finish them off).

Hope your other Angel does ok.

 

[melh1979]

We are actually adding CO2 to the tank as it is planted but it has been stable for a couple of weeks before we added the original fish.
I think it might be that they were just not in great condition and so were stressed by the change - I also wonder if maybe they were stunted in some way which also made them weaker. I hadn't noticed the large one being aggressive at all but I guess it's possible as I don't look at the tank 24/7!! We're going to go back to the shop to ask them about it. We won't get any more though for the moment as we're off on hols soon and we want to make sure the remaining one is okay.
Thanks for the replies from everyone.

 

[pyroo]

mine did the same thing and it died as well, but for yours, did you see if it had any faint red markings (like viens) around the mouth or fins, if so, it has an internal bacterial infection