Problem? Altum Angel Fish

CharlieV

CharlieV

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Feb 16, 2005
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Hi All,

Appologies if worng forum but am a nebie and thought this would be better than the cichlid forum!!

I have a few Angels. All the Angels have a good profile with slightly fat bellies after feeding. This one little fella doesn't eat much and his/her belly is almost concave and he/she looks very thin.

Last night I managed to feed him/her 4 flakes by hand (whilst keeping the others at bay during normal feeding time) but he/she seemd pretty disinterested although did not spit the food out.

His poop is white most of the time. His growth has nto been as fast as the other Angels. He was bought one week after the others to not risk overloading bioload.
Stats
Ammonia - 0
Nitrite - 0
Nitrate - 10-20

I feed the angels and Danios Tetra flakes 5 days a week, frozen blood worm once a week and fast them one day a week.


anyone know why he/she wouldn't be eating/growing?
sorry for the length of Post
Chaz
 
Do you see any sign of portruding scales? Moving slowly or almost motionless?
This is an internal bacterial disease commonly called Dropsy.

I would suspect the root cause of it being the high NO3 level. Well maintained and established FW tank should have a NO3 reading of less 10 or even less than 5. My SW tank, (which many have hard time keeping below 20) have reading 0f 10ppm.

Rohn
 
no signs of protruding scales that I have noticed

Can Dropsy be passed to the other fish? How can I treat it?

I thought NO3 might be a little high but then I htought that would effect all my fish?

thanks for hjelp so far
 
Your NO3 level is fine, below 20ppm is a fairly standard benchmark, some even go as high as below 40ppm, but I wouldn't. Below 10ppm is a very neurotic standard, although I'm not putting it down, if you want to stock that lightly and/or change water that frequently, your fish will thank you for it. However, whether 10ppm is really superior to 20ppm in a realistic sense is open for debate.

More importantly though, NO3 doesn't exhibit short term toxicity in fish, it has its effects in the long term. Shorter term effects of higher NO3 can be tied to concomitant pollutants.

What you describe sounds like an internal problem, it could be dropsy or a parasite. Check out Pandora and see if any of the described afflictions sound familiar:
http://www.2cah.com/pandora/Disease.html
 
I think i might have messed up my words. I used concave but maybe i meant convex (which ever goes in not out!) - I mean he's really thin and looks like he has a dent where his stomach should be.

From what I have read on Dropsy that tends to bloat the fish right?
He def isn't bloated anything but - he looks really thin under his mouth and his sides are v thin. Skin looks cool though no obvious marks, lesions or blotches. Colour is great in him.

Think i need to get QT tank ASAP and sort the little fellow out

should I salt the water of QT tank?

Thanks for all advice so far guys...
Chaz
 
Altums are generally wild caught, so the chances are good that it is an internal parasite, intestinal roundworms or something of that nature.

Despite happychem's disclaimer (which IMHO applies to already established aquarium species only), with delicate F0 wild caught fish, I would consider 10ppm nitrate quite high. Adjustment of hypersensitive blackwater fish to captivity is not easy IME.
 
In nitrogen cycle everything is connected to the other. The high NO3 level indicates that high NH3 that quickly coverted to NO3 via NO2. Thus indicate 3 things, over stocking, over feeding or poor MAINT.

Thus the root cause is NO3 since that is a good indication of N2 process in your tank. Like I said my even SW tank is mainted at 10ppm.

Thus bad water quality (NO3 as an indicator) is one of the causes of internal bacteria ... Dropsy.

Rohn
 
I was reading about these fish the other day and besides the tendency for them to have diseases from being wild caught the other thing people mentioned was feeding problems. You might try some live foods.
 
Dropsy has multiple causes, bacterial infection being only one of many - it is a symptom, not a disease. Also, the fish being questioned do not show signs of dropsy per the original poster.

10 ppm nitrate is fine water quality for most tanks, but not necessarily so for delicate wild-caught fish. The nitrifiaction of this tank is not in question.

Hollow-bellied (rather the opposite of dropsy anyway) and reluctant to feed are commonly symptoms of parasites, not bacterial infection.
 
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