Flame Angel Dying - opinions wanted

[perforator]

So I have a Flame Angel that I've had for over 10 years. Over the past month he has progressively gotten worse to the point where he is basically swimming and not going anywhere. He seems to have lost his balance, his tail is always down and his head is always up, is that the swim bladder? Today I caught him laying on the sand bed by the mouth of a cave with my two peppermint shrimp sitting there watching him. Not sure if the were waiting for him to die or not.

I feel really bad for him but I don't want him to die underneath my rock work either. What do you guys do when you have a fish you know is going to kick the bucket? Do you let him fight it out till the end or do you give him the porcelain promenade?

 

[MondoBongo]

first, let me say, sorry for potentially impending loss.

thankfully i haven't had to face this situation yet. the apparently consensus is usually to euthanize the fish, typically using high concentrations of clove oil.

http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2552155&highlight=clove+oil

 

[T Haynes]

For what it's worth I just put down one of my clowns who didn't have a good quality of life anymore. That's the decision you need to make. I would assume 10 years is a good run

 

[ThRoewer]

10 years is actually a couple more than they usually reach in the wild. And you likely didn't get him as a larva, which makes him at least 11 years in total. That's quite old.

Studies found that they get to about 8 years in the wild:

Age-based demography and reproductive ontogeny of angelfishes belonging to the family Pomacanthidae (Full PDF)

Very interesting work!

Some notable findings:

In the wild Pomacathus sexstriatus can get as old as 60 years!
Centropyge bicolor up to 18 years and
Centropyge loricula gets up to 8 years old in the wild.

....

As for putting him down: use clove oil. You find it at stores like Wholefoods, Sprouts,...

 

[perforator]

Thanks guys, Clove Oil it is.

 

[perforator]

10 years is actually a couple more than they usually reach in the wild. And you likely didn't get him as a larva, which makes him at least 11 years in total. That's quite old.

Studies found that they get to about 8 years in the wild:



As for putting him down: use clove oil. You find it at stores like Wholefoods, Sprouts,...

Yea he's a couple years older than 10, just not sure how many. I had the flame angel, two clownfish and a royal gramma in a 30 gallon tank. I upgraded to a 40 in 2006 and moved them over. I have a record of when I bough that tank but not when i bought the fish that was in the 30. The royal gramma died in 2013 and i still have the clownfish.

 

[ThRoewer]

Clownfish can get easily 20 years old, some made it up to 30.

 

[jmicky41]

I have never made it past 8 years with a flame angel. I would describe there last few months as a general decline: loss of color, not eating much, low activity, ragged fins ect.

Sounds like yours had a good run.