# Possibly over reacting here lol (anglefish)



## djtbster (Nov 29, 2006)

hey guys, i just lost one of my angelfish, it was a prized female platinum white veiltail angelfish, cause unknown possibly bacteria. She showed to be lathergic, kept her mouth open, and stayed on the top. She showed the symptons 2-3 days ago and passed away last night. Upon her dead prior to freezing her, nostrils were very red, but other than that nothing was lodge in her mouth and her gills visually looked ok, but im no vet. Now the overracting part, im not sure if the other fish have contracted velvet, the other angels seem fine are eating and are feisty to spar with one another. my only concern is one of the ways u can look for signs of velvet it to turn the tank lights of and shine a light at them. Doing so all the angels glow gold when shined by a flashlight, but this could also be just me overracting as the water is slighty tanned tea brown as it is mainly a S.A tank. Any help would be greatly appriciated. In the 15 years ive kept aquarium fishes ive never experienced the velvet disease.

some pics attached for possible diagnosis


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## Fishfur (Mar 4, 2012)

I'm sorry for your loss. They are beautiful fish, I've always liked them. But I've never had a case of Velvet, so can't be of much help with it. I'd suggest looking up Velvet and pics of fish with it, see if anything matches up with what you are seeing.

From what I can see in these pics, the fish look very well to me. I see no patches or discolourations on them. Then again, I've only seen a few pearlscale Angels, and the scales really reflect light and make it harder to see; but truly lovely fish. 

Only thing I wonder about is they seem to be carrying the dorsal fins pretty low, but maybe that's because they're startled at the light, since they are all doing it.

Hopefully it was just the one fish. I have in the past lost a couple of Otos, that I saw one day with swollen red bellies, and were dead the next day, and a couple of Danios I had came down with Dropsy. Having no experience with it beforehand, I didn't recognize the symptoms soon enough. They were very poorly by the time I was able to catch them, and I had to put them down humanely. They both were showing signs of infection, such as red belly, red gills, etc., but no other fish caught anything. No treatment in the tank was done or needed. 

There are so many bacteria in our tanks, all the time, which for the most part cause no trouble at all. Consider the Staph Aureus all humans have on our skin. Rarely a problem but if we get a cut or wound, Staph is what infects the cut. An antibiotic resistant type of it causes MRSA, highly unpleasant and can take weeks of double or triple antibiotics to cure. 

If a fish has a weakness of some kind that damaged the slime coat or breaks the skin, a tiny wound or scrape, or maybe it had a fight with another fish and got really stressed, really, just about anything, but we will probably never know what the provocative problem was. But that is when an opportunistic infection can get in and wreak havoc, perhaps killing the unfortunate fish.

But it's tank mates, if healthy, will often not be affected unless it is a parasite, such as Ich, or Velvet. Keep a close eye, read up on the common fish diseases and hope for the best. Good luck


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## Merman (Nov 23, 2009)

*May not be a disease...*

Your other fish don't necessarily look ill, they look collectively unhappy though with their fins down. Their skin looks good and parasite free, their eyes are clear. How long have you had the angels, did you add any 'new' fish recently which may have introduced something?

The death of the one fish may not be related to what the others may/may not have. Angelfish can be kind of odd to keep until you catch on to what they really like....they really like bloodworms give them some (your fish look kind of underfed - after they eat you should be able to see a little bulge where their stomach is located), don't feed just flakes...you have to make your fish as healthy as possible. Increase your aeration - It doesn't look like your water is moving around very much - lack of oxygen could be the reason your dead fish was gasping at the surface with it's mouth open. Is your temperature around 78/80F?

What about other fish in the tank, what are they and do they seem unwell? It doesn't look like anything is nipping at your angelfish/fin edges are good.

I hope this didn't seem to all come out shotgun, I'm legitimately offering sound advice. When angelfish are well taken care of they are the most beautiful fish.

Cheers


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## djtbster (Nov 29, 2006)

they are well feed, been feeding them frozen bloodworm and brine shrimp, every other day with flakes inbetween.


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## Merman (Nov 23, 2009)

*Disease ?*

If you're feeding you fish properly and they are that thin you may have Camallanus (persitant intestinal worms). It can be a pain in the ass.

Don't add any more fish to your tank. Try to get your hands on something called Levamisole...you can't usu. buy it in shops...so hopefully someone on site can help you out. Don't waste your time with 'Jungle' remedies and 'medicated' foods, etc....they don't work.

I'm assuming you want to save your fish.
Do you have other tanks? Where did you get your angelfish?

Cheers


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## Ryan.Wilton (Dec 12, 2012)

What's the tank temperature? Sounds like a pretty high protein diet, I know from my experiences with Koi that when the temperature drops below a certain point, their digestive system stops functioning to allow them to basically hibernate for the winter.

Similarly tropical fish's digestive systems begin to slow down in lower temperatures. Higher temps generally allows for better digestion, as well it usually discourages bacteriums and parasites. It could've just been that angels time. Most of the time angelfish seem to die off once they hit about 3-5. It could've been natural.


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## djtbster (Nov 29, 2006)

@merman I have other tanks not stocked ATM, only other tank I have that is stocked is ebi with cherryshrimp with scarlet badis. I got the female that died from this forum last year maybe year before, the other to platinums were from pjsbrent display tank last year, and the blue platinum pearlscales were from aquatic kingdom again early last year. 

@ryan the tank temp is 80-81f I would keep it higher but my amano shrimps from my research are cold water shrimps and 80 is the recommended max temp for them. I feed them omega one flakes/shrimp pellets


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## afrsss (Apr 26, 2011)

Just wondering how the rest are now? Everyone else seem ok?


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## djtbster (Nov 29, 2006)

All looks fine, my apisto have even spawned, and my pair of the blue angels a preparing to spawn aswell. I'm just treating the tank with melafix, pimafix, kordon rid ich in half dosage to passively treat any sort of disease and illness that might be present


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## Ryan.Wilton (Dec 12, 2012)

djtbster said:


> @ryan the tank temp is 80-81f I would keep it higher but my amano shrimps from my research are cold water shrimps and 80 is the recommended max temp for them. I feed them omega one flakes/shrimp pellets


Am I the only one who finds it really funny when feeding shrimp pellets to shrimps?


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## djtbster (Nov 29, 2006)

Lol it is ironic but they were meant for the cories, and plecos I have


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