my angels keep dying

[sezaro21]

:sad Everytime I try to put angels in my tank they last a day or two and then they die. My other fish are doing great and my water is testing great. AMMONIA=0, NITRITE=0, NITRATE= 40, and PH=7.4. Why are they dying? someone please help. I've gone thru 6 angels and only 1 has lived. I really want another angel fish. Oh, by the way, To make the water softer I've added peat moss to my Emperor 400 refillable cartridge to bring the PH a bit lower.

[orangefin]

what other fish do you have and how big is your tank? maybe I can help ...

[sezaro21]

I have a 30 gallon tank, with a gourami, a spotted catfish, and a tiretrack.

[Blinky]

Your nitrate reading is pretty high, that could be part of the problem - it's safest to try and keep nitrate as low as you can by doing frequent water changes. Anything above 20ppm is call for a water change, IMO.
Also, are all the angels coming from the same source? Sometimes fish are weak/sick at the store even though they look fine, and the stress of being moved is too much for them.
Are the fish you're buying being kept in a tank with a pH very different from yours? If so, are you making sure you're acclimating them over a period of time to the new conditions?
I'm sorry to hear that you keep losing them, I hope we can figure out what's going on so you can keep angels - they really are wonderful fish :)

[mwood322]

One thing I've found with angels is if you get them home, and they don't start eating within two days they generally die. It took a few tries before I started treating them for fin rot. Since then I've had fairly good luck. I have also seen that many chain stores if they carry angels have finrot running rampant.

In general though you wouldn't want only 2 unless you got a pair. Mine normally tried very hard to kill each other when kept in pairs that weren't male female. best bet is get about 6 total and let them work it out, remove the ones who get beat up the worst.

--Mia