coral beauty

[westernpilot]

hello,
last night I got a coral beauty Angel from a LFS and it appeared to be very healthy and lively. I picked it up and took it home last night. It hid for a few minutes but it soon came out of hiding and was exploring the tank. This morning when I woke up the poor guy had passed away and was laying motionless on the substrate. Any opinions on what might have caused this would be appreciated!

some info: Tank is a 40 gallon with ammonia at 0, nitrites and nitrates at 0. Ph and alkalinity were where they should be. salinity was at 1.024 and temp was 75-76 degrees Fahrenheit. I tested it last night and this morning with the same readings. The tank has been up for about 2 & 1/2 months and has one clown in it so far. Ive had small algae blooms but that's the only problems I have encountered.

 

[jraker]

Angels can be disease bombs. Always quarantine every fish to avoid this

 

[westernpilot]

also the clown fish is still healthy and unaffected.

 

[thegrun]

A number of things come to mind as for a reason for the fish death. First off what was the salinity of the water the fish was in at the store? Fish do not do well with rapid increases in salinity and if it was kept in water with a 1.020 salinity or lower it would take a few days to safely bring it up to the salinity of your tank. Of corse the fish could have had any number of diseases that you have now exposed your other fish to which is why you need to always quarantine any new fish. I would guess salinity was the cause, but please in the future don't risk the lives of all your fish, quarantine!!!

 

[westernpilot]

they said they keep their tanks at 1.024 for salinity but I didn't test the water the fish came in.

 

[michfish5]

How did you acclimate the fish? You should check specific gravity of the water in the bag first thing and then float the bag to acclimate for temp and then do a slow drip or gradually add water from your tank to bag etc. prior to releasing it?,My lfs regularly keeps their tanks on the low side so I always have to do a slow drip for anything I get. And yes, you really should quarantine all new fish for a few weeks prior to putting them in your display. Sorry about the Coral Beauty though.

 

[westernpilot]

I did not do a drip process. I am planning on doing that when I add another fish. I floated the bag to allow the temp to acclimate.

I am nervous on getting another fish when trying again, I will use these new methods. I would like another coral beauty but am not sure. I really enjoy the dwarf angels.

 

[thegrun]

On a side note on a long term basis dwarf angels need a bigger tank than yours, they usually will get very aggressive over time in a tank under 75 gallons. I do not in any way think that was the cause of death, but a 40 gallon tank is just too small long term.

 

[Dkuhlmann]

I agree with all that's been said and I was going to say something about min tank required for a Coral Beauty but the grun beat me to it.

Ok one thing that comes to mind about this fish passing is that many of the Coral Beauties are collected by using cyanide and usually live for only a short period of time. It could be that yours had this issue and it's demise is from collection practices of using cyanide. I believe the Coral Beauty most of which are collected in this way.

 

[scooter31707]

I agree ^^^^. Also, you might want to setup a quarantine tank next time. Also how did you cycle the tank? I have really never had any issues with CB.

 

[reefbroao]

My bet is that It died because the LFS qt'd it with copper. Coral Beauties will deteriorate rather quickly in copper based medications