Angel red streaks on head not eating

[Kmbishop111]

Hello!

I have a 36 Gallon Bowfront freshwater tank. (Set up in June of this year) I have 1 adult Angel, 7 Panda Cory Cats, 1 Dwarf Gourami, and 5 Mystery Snails. I have had these since June. My tank is lightly planted with a sand substrate. Recent additions to the tank include Anarchis, Wisteria, Amazon Sword, and Duckweed.

I run an Aqueon 75 HOB filter w sponge, filter floss, Bio-max and Ceramic Rings. I also have an airstone. I do a 30% WC weekly and vac my substrate as needed. I use Prime as water conditioner. I wash my media in tank water as needed. I just added a UV filter last week but have not used it yet.

Water Paramaters
Amm 0
Nitri 0
Nitrate 20
KH 80
GH 30
pH 8.5
API Test Kit
Temp 78 -- 150w heater

I am in the process of setting up a 10 Gallon QT tank.

I feed Tetra Super Color flakes, Hikari sinking wafers,shrimp pellets, algae wafers, frozen brine shrimp weekly. My snails also get veggie supplements and I dose my take weekly with Reptile Calcium Carbonate w D3. 1 1/2 Tbsp added to tank, also keep Cuttlebone in the filter and a piece weighted down in tank.

3 weeks ago I added 10 Harlequin Rasboras to the tank. I did not QT them and this is when the problems began. Completely my fault and very irresponsible of me. I lost 3 Rasboras within 2 days. I removed the Rasboras from the tank before they died when symptomatic. (Erratic swimming, isolate, red gills, bloat, fin rot etc) NTD?

My Angel stopped eating for 3 days this week after Rasboras were returned. She has ate very little the past 2 days. Her feces always appear normal. Gils appear normal. Swimming normal. She has red streaks starting at mouth extending out to eyes. Also her mouth is swollen and looks something like mouth rot? Going to the top of the tank for air on occasion.

I started treatment on Monday with API General Cure. I removed Carbon from filter. I dosed the main tank twice and tomorrow I will do 25% WC and add Carbon to filter. I did this at the advice of a fellow fish keeper and LFS. Little improvement since TX with Angel.

Meds I have on hand: Melafix, Pimafix, General Cure, Erythromycin
Can order anything else they LFS and have pretty quickly.

Any ideas or advice would be greatly appreciated!!

Pics attached are of the Harlequin Rasboras and my Angel, Althea.






And now a few of the Rasboras

 

[the loach]

Your pH is way too high. Probably caused by adding calcium carbonate. What is the pH of the water before treatment?

 

[Kmbishop111]

Your pH is way too high. Probably caused by adding calcium carbonate. What is the pH of the water before treatment?

Between 7.8-8

 

[the loach]

That's already on the high side for your fish to feel comfortable in. Stop with the carbonate, do a 15-20% water change every day to get it down to around 7,9. Chances are the fish will get better on their own with a lower pH.
After that it might be necessary to get the pH a bit lower in the 7,5-7,6 range so they will be fine on the long term.

 

[Kmbishop111]

That's already on the high side for your fish to feel comfortable in. Stop with the carbonate, do a 15-20% water change every day to get it down to around 7,9. Chances are the fish will get better on their own with a lower pH.
After that it might be necessary to get the pH a bit lower in the 7,5-7,6 range so they will be fine on the long term.

Thank you for your reply!! I will stop dosing the main tank as suggested and follow thru w the water changes to slowly bring the pH down.

 

[forse]

I agree with the idea that a pH of 8.5 is too high for angelfish. What type of sand do you have as substrate? I don't know the size of the angel and of the rasboras, but are you sure the angel is not eating rasboras?

 

[Kmbishop111]

I agree with the idea that a pH of 8.5 is too high for angelfish. What type of sand do you have as substrate? I don't know the size of the angel and of the rasboras, but are you sure the angel is not eating rasboras?

I just re-read my original post and left out key info. The Rasboras were only in the tank for a few days. After 3 deaths, I removed them and took them back to the LFS as they were quite obviously sick. My apologies as I thought I had mentioned that.Oh, and my Angel is almost palm size so that would have been a good possibility. lol

I use National Geographic sand. I have heard in can raise the pH, however I retested my water out of the tap and it is the same as my tank. I know calcium carbonate does/can raise the pH, so that would have been great if it was that simple of a cure. (Not dosing the tank w CC) But looks like it's not going to be unfortunately. I've done the WC's and it's running at 8.0 now.

My Angel is eating again and seems to be getting back to her normal self. I was worried it was a bacterial infection such as pseudomonas / aeromonas w secondary mouth rot. Was on verge of ordering some KanaPlex and Furan2 for gram negative bacterial TX but I'm going to hold off and keep an eye on her for the time being.

 

[the loach]

8 is better but still too high for your fish. You can put some peat in there or add co2 to get the pH lower, aim for 7,5, will be better for the plants as well.

 

[Kmbishop111]

8 is better but still too high for your fish. You can put some peat in there or add co2 to get the pH lower, aim for 7,5, will be better for the plants as well.

Fixing to add some driftwood, hoping that will help lower it. If not will try peat. So frustrating. On a positive note, have been wanting to do a low tech planted tank for a min. This gives me a good excuse. Thanks again for the sound advice.

 

[forse]

It seems as things will get back to normal. Keep us updated!