I've never lost an angel, but have had some problems, miune tend to ber very picky eaters, when they were juvies i fed the bloodworms or frozen angel food(shredded it appart for them when super small(yuck)), I'm not a big flake food person, i find it to be messy, and IMO not as good for your fish as a mixture of other foods, if i feed anything similar to flakes it would be the granules, or 'crisps'. Although a day or so of not eating wouldnt kill your angels. aclimate them slowly, and make sure to have some taller plants where they can hide away from everyone, angels tend to get stressed very easily
Angelfish problem
- Thread starter BucJason
- Start date
I think I've found the secret to succesful angel keeping! Don't buy them from chain pet shops! I've found any angels I've bought from Petco and Petsmart die within a week. Then I talked to the owner of a LFS. She said that because here in the midwest our PH is very high (about 8.2) any angels not bred and raised in high PH die quickly once put into it. Sure enough my adult was purchased at the LFS in my old town and now I have picked up 4 young angels from my new favorite LFS and all are doing great. I've had 3 of the young ones for about 3 months and the newest for about 3 weeks. my brother in law has been through about 8 angels purchased from the local petco and only has one left. I HIGHLY recommend to anyone to find locally bred angels for the best chance of success!
Locally bred Angels are a good way to go. If you find a good LFS, not a chain store, you should be able to find healthy Angels. I got my Angels from an expensive LFS but the quality of thier fish is what urged me to buy them. Now with over a year of having them they are huge and spawning constantly.
I've kept three angels total, right now I am down to only one...but the other two were wiped out by a parasite or possibly the "Angel AIDS" that was talked about earlier, the third one did not die and is still very happy so I'm guessing it had developed immunity. I kept my angels in a tank with some glow lite tetras that I think do move around quite fast, but it hasn't bothered the angels. Also, my PH is very high, about 8.4ish, and the angels were acclimated for about 15 minutes...I just put the bag with the fish into the tank, then put about five table spoons of water into the bag every 5 minutes. My angels don't eat any food that's not floating on the surface. In fact, I have seen them swimming toward a flake floating on the surface, before they got to the flake, it sunk a little, they did a fast U-turn and went for the floating flake next to it. I keep my water about 79ish with all fake plants...but lots of it. This is my first time keeping angels, and when I got them, they were a millimeter larger than a half dollar, from top fin to bottom fin. I've had them for less than three months and now the surviving angel is about three inches from top fin to bottom fin. The angels that passed away due to disease were also that big. Just for reference...I got my angels from a store called Jack's Aquarium, which I think are only available in three or four other states in the north east...I currently live in Ohio.
I personally think they're easy to keep...the disease thing was caused by some unquarantined cories...which died within a day after introducing to the tank. Turned out that whole tank where I got the cories from at Petsmart was diseased. The day after I returned the diseased cories, I went back to see the tank, it was completely empty.
I just thought of something that my LFS owner said to me about angels. He doesn't get them from a mass-producer. He gets them from a local breeder. However, he did mention that angels don't seem to transport very well. He said that he doesn't always have them because sometimes they just die shortly after he gets them. I don't know if that could explain some of what's going on here but it's the only thing that comes to mind right now. Like I said in my other post, I've never had a problem with them. Just trying to figure out why some people might.
if angels are packaged correctly for shipping you should not experience a high mortality due to shipping.
I have 6 wild Scalare that were shipped from Peru to a friend of mine..he purchased over 200 of them because he heard the wild angels had a high mortality rate. all 200 of them made it from Peru..thru customs..72 hrs. he had calculated 50+% mortality..in a nutshell he called me to see if I could take any..my only regret is that I didn't take more.
I do believe that there are a number of factors..#1 is that most LFS's get second rate stock..the prime stock is retained by the breeder to maintain his/her stocks. others are sold or traded to other breeders or sold to individual parties..left overs are what the stores receive.
2 depends in where the fish come from.as mentioned there could be water conditions which may actually cause the early demise of stock
I do believe..if you can find a local breeder you stand a better chance of survivability.
that said with proper acclimation you increase the chance for your stock to adapt.
(I do know of many fish keepers that use the plop and drop method of acclimation with very low mortality)
Could the problems come from keeping Angels in a community tank with fish that aren't native to South America like they are??? Maybe fish from other regions introduce diseases to them that they have no immunity built up for...
Don't know , just thinking out loud....
Don't know , just thinking out loud....
