Sick Angels. Lost two so far...

nessy

nessy

AC Members
Mar 9, 2007
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Hello everyone.

Last night I lost my 2nd angel to some type of fungus infection. I tried treating them with Jungle Pond Fungus Eliminator plus 25% water changes per day as told by a local breeder.
When that showed no signs of improvement I asked a friend who runs a pet store and was told to use MarOxy and Maracyn which I did for two days.
maybe it was too late?...I dont know.

As it stands right now. I have 3 black and silver angels with red and slightly swollen areas where the pectoral fins attach to the body. None of the three show any signs of fungus growth but all three are not eating and seem to just stare off into space.


My water is..
PH...7.5
Ammonia...1.2
Nitrate...0
Nitrite...0
Water temp.....87

Thanks for any help
Nessy.
 
wow - your ammonia is WAY too high! angels are pretty sensitive fish, and from looking at your parameters i'm going to guess that you just set this tank up and put the angels into it? when angels don't eat that's a major sign that something is wrong.

right now, do more water changes to get ammonia down below .25 ppm. 50% changes back to back if you have to. empty half, fill it up, empty half, etc. . the last time you refill the tank, fill it up so that the water level is about 1-2 inches LOWER than where the water comes out of the filter. ammonia is a toxin that affects the gills, and makes it difficult for the fish to breathe. your water temp is also pretty high, and the warmer the water is, the less oxygen it holds. dropping the water level a bit will increase the amount of oxygen in the water because there will be more water movement at the surface. also you should slowly (over a day or two) reduce the temp down to about 78-80 degrees.

once that is done, read about cycling in the freshwater newbie thread. there is a link in the top part of the page (sticky section) called freshwater cycling.

once you have some more info, decide whether you want to keep the angels and try to cycle with them (bad idea, you'll probably have to do water changes twice a day for several weeks) or take the angels back to where you got them and do a fishless cycle.
 
Last edited:
Thanks for the reply..

I just did a water change today 50% but I had to take the filter material out for the fungus meds. I've had the tank and fish for about a year.

Would the high ammonia levels cause the redness?
 
ammonia that high is likely enough to start irritating the fish's skin, so yes. or it could be gill inflamation causing redness all the way down to the pectoral fin areas. either way, yes, ammonia is the cause. taking out the filter media just made it worse because you removed a large part of any bacteria that might have started to grow. put the media back in and don't worry about fungus treament unless you actually SEE fungus on the fish. it's kinda white/gray/yellow and fuzzy.

the reason i say that your tank isn't cycled is because you posted that you had 0 nitrates - a cycled tank has 0 ammonia, 0 nitrites, and some level of nitrates, at least 5-10ppm. they probably have been removed at this point by the water changes, but you should still see more of them showing up every day.
 
A one yr old tank with those readings..? Do the water changes in small increments, daily if not twice a day.
 
what else is in the tank?

how big is the tank?

what is your water change schedule?

a tank of adequate size and stock should not have 1.2 ammoina. you need to get it down. angels may be tougher than some people think, but the only angel i have known to survive ammoina that high (and much higher) is in the tank right next to me right now, long story short, she was in a 5 gallon tank that rarely had water changes, and was given to me when the orig. owner moved, but shes a real fighter. it took a long time to get her back into tip-top shape after the ammoina incident.
 
The tank is a 55 gal. I'm thinking the high ammonia was due to the fact I had to take the filters out for the Jungle fungus meds.

I just did a 50% water change and my wife is testing the ammonia level now.
If this doesnt drop the level do I keep on until its down to .25? Or get something to add to the water to drop the ammonia level?
 
keep doing the changes, adding chemicals at this point is probably going to stress the angels even more and make their condition worse. fresh clean water is going to be the best thing for them.
 
ok right now I'm at .80 with the last water change.

doing the changes isnt a problem cause we have great well water...
 
Thank you so much for your help!!!!!!
I am thinking I should wait to do the 55 again. The fish seem kind-of
stress out right now. Do you agree with this or should I go ahead and do another change?
 
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