Flame Angel.. dying?

[Cheebs]

I added a flame angel about 3 days ago to my 75 gallon reef tank. Everything seemed great at first, he was jsut really shy and kept to the caves. Yesterday however, I notcied some Ich spots on him, a few white spots here and there. MY cleaner shrimp jumped aboard and started picking away at him, and this morning I woke up to find the angel spot free. However, he seems worse off than before, he won't move much and is breathin at an extremely fast rate, about 5-6 times per second. I'm not sure what his mouth normally looks like but it seems puffed up a bit, maybe thats whats restricting his breathing?

Anyways, I'm wondering if this is just due to stress in the new tank. or if there is something I can do to fix it.

Thanks.

 

[guardrail]

well the practical method is to put him into a QT tank and lower the salenity. He is prolly breathing fast because 1 he is stressed and 2 he most likely if not totaly has ich sores on his gills. That mixed with the higher salt content of a reef tank (if he is in a reef tank) makes him have to breath more.

taking him down in salt lets him work less to get more air and kills the ich...

 

[Cheebs]

MY quarantine is out of order for now, I will get it up adn running asap. I just did a water change adding some fresh water without salt, lowering the salinity slightly to help out. It seems the puffed up mouth could have been cause by the ich itself. I'll keep a close eye on thigns for the next couple hours. Also raising the temp a bit, I hear it helps, is that correct?

Thanks!

 

[guardrail]

raising the temp has been said to speed the life cycle of ich but if he is in you DT that means all your other fish can get it faster... its not good or bad... I learned the hard way... and now have to run fishless for 5 weeks with all my fish out of the DT. also the puffed up mouth part doesnt sound like a ich related issue to me. i never heard of that. could be a secondary infection though. theres were the QT is even better. i didnt have a QT ready. all i do is waterchanges every day to hold off ammonia and keep the water fresh its costly but works...

 

[IPowderBlueTang]

I had two flames angels at different times and they all died in less than a week, at first they swam all over and was happy and all the sudden a few days later started hiding and the labour breathing started. I treated with copper each time , but the end result was their demise. So I gave up on flames!

 

[Cheebs]

He's looking worse today. IT doesn't seem like ich, but mroe like some type of Columnaris or cottonmouth. He almost looks "rabid" and his mouth/face are turning white. I did another water change last night and checked all levels. He's not eating either. cAn anything be done?

thanks.

 

[flameangel88]

Is your flameangel shaking its head? Like it wants to get something off? If it is then its flukes.

Did you just added the flameangel or added something else as well? What other fish do you have in the tank? Was your flame being chased by other fish? If it's not eating then I would try to soak food with garlic and selcon/vita-chem.

I hope it comes around!

 

[Cheebs]

I had only a maroon for fish when I added the angel. I added a BTA at the same time. The maroon and Angel got along great, not chasing. The Flame is looking pretty brutal now, the coloration of his skin in the area surrounding his mouth is bleaching white almost.. I did some more tests after the water change and it seems the pH is a little low (8.0) Could this be the cause? He's going down fast!

 

[flameangel88]

PH at 8 is fine books say 7.8-8.5 is okay and depends on time of day also. Is your water movement good? How long is the tank running? Doesn't sound like your angel is going to make it.

Also post this in the disease forum and you may get more response there.

 

[Cheebs]

Tank ahs been running 2 months - perhaps too soon for a flame. Tons of flow. Heading to work for 4 hours I'll checkup when I get back.

Thanks.

 

[Cheebs]

It seems it's too late for the little guy. He's swimming aorund now, but lopsided, getting spun around by the powerheads. His face looks like it's litteraly decaying

He came out to say goodbye when I had the camera out, so I got a blurry pic before he went back to his cave. I give him another couple hours.

Thanks everyone for your help, lesseon learned. any usggestions for something simpler for my next fish? Perhaps a couple Chromis?

 

[flameangel88]

Really sorry to hear that. You said your maroon is fine...I would wait a bit before putting anything else in. If it was ich I would think you should still see it on the flame. I personally think flameangels are hardy and I would recommend you try another one after you check all the parameters.

I'd three in my 75g last November and I currently have 6 since upgrading to a 180g. Have to say it's a beautiful site to see all 6 swimming out in the open. Sorry to be off-track but just didn't want you to be discouraged with one bad experience.

 

[Cheebs]

Thanks for the kind words. I will most definitely be trying with another flame angel, I picked up the maroon first because I wanted to make sure everythign would be fine, and went with the angel a couple months later because it's what I wanted most. I will most certainly be waiting at least another couple months before another attempt with a flame angel though, just so I can be more comfortable with it.


As for the reason why the angel died, apperently it had nothing to do with Ich. I did see white spots a couple days ago, but he was sitting very still and I've got a huge copepod population right now, so I think it msut have been them. I inspected the angel well enough before getting rid of it (It stopped breathing a few minutes ago) and aside from the mouth problems nothing else was visible at all.

The supplier I got the fish from is very reliable, but it seems I bought the fish only a couple days after it had been brouht in, so I think that adding it to my tank jsut added another level of stress that was jsut too much for it.

Anyways, it's my very first major loss or problem with this tank, so I can't get too discouraged. Everything else is doing great.

 

[flameangel88]

Best of luck on your next attempt!

 

[mingo]

i had the same problem a few days ago. my flame was doing great and then one day it got the white discoloration on its mouth and then i found it lodged in a rock (dead) one morning. my tank is going under hypo right now. i had a few fish in the tank that were doing great until i added a pair of true percs. it wasn't long before my pbt started showing signs of ich. Most of the smaller fish have been dying off. my water parameter has been checking out just fine too.

 

[Cheebs]

hmm interesting mingo.. t seems quite a few people have reported the same thing.. perhaps we all have somtheing in common in our tanks that could be causing this... Imperfect water paameters? Other fish? Stress? Random luck? I'd pay a pretty penny just to find out exactly what caused this so it never happens again.

Cheebs.

 

[Sheol]

Beware that in recent years, there have been drastic instances of both Flames & Coral Beauties failing to thrive & suddenly dying. Must be collection practices IMHO.
Some do fine, some die quickly. It bites..

Matthew

 

[mingo]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=11196169#post11196169 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Cheebs
hmm interesting mingo.. t seems quite a few people have reported the same thing.. perhaps we all have somtheing in common in our tanks that could be causing this... Imperfect water paameters? Other fish? Stress? Random luck? I'd pay a pretty penny just to find out exactly what caused this so it never happens again.

Cheebs.

what's weird is that there was no labored breathing or any signs of the sick being "unhappy" asides from the white spots on the mouth. it was eating like a pig too.