S o s

[bangbangkhan]

I got a flame angel yesterday along with 2 other fish...a yellow tang and a 4 stripe damsel.

I drip acclimated them to my QT and when i woke up today the flame angel was laying on the floor breathing heavily. I then proceeded to relocate it to another tank.

its been over 8 hours now and the fish is breathing heavy still and laying on the floor. when i try to touch it then it starts to swim around and then lay back down after 30-45 seconds...can any one please explain how I can save her? There are no apparent injuries or discolouration on the angel.

Checked Ammonia, nitrite and nitrate and all of them are zero. The other fish that were part of the acclimation are doing fine in the QT.

Thanks!

 

[HumbleFish]

Since the other fish are fine, it's probably not a water quality issue. So, I would focus more on disease. But in the absence of obvious symptoms you are just left to guess. One option would be to perform a f/w dip on the angel. This would (temporarily) clear flukes and Velvet from his gills if either of those are present. If you go this route, look for any tiny "white things" that fall off/out of the fish at the 3-4 min mark.

 

[bangbangkhan]

Well thanks for the advice....I was gonna give it a dip but she was dead by the time I got to her

 

[Dr Colliebreath]

Did you match the salinity of the QT to the salinity of the water in the store? Stores and other fish sellers typically keep their salinity low(1.018 or so). If the salinity of your QT was much higher than the salinity of the store water, then the stress of higher salinity along with the other stresses may be the cause of death.

 

[bangbangkhan]

The fishes were drip acclimated....

 

[MrTuskfish]

Just my observation: There seem t be an abnormally high number of flame angels that don't make it. This is a very widespread fish and I would guess that the source of the fish may play into it. Many places in the Philippines, Indonesia, and just labeled "Indo-Pacific" do not handle fish well and cyanide collection is still used in some places. Countries with a zillion islands can't possibly enforce their collection laws and I avoid fish from those places.

 

[snorvich]

Did you match the salinity of the QT to the salinity of the water in the store? Stores and other fish sellers typically keep their salinity low(1.018 or so). If the salinity of your QT was much higher than the salinity of the store water, then the stress of higher salinity along with the other stresses may be the cause of death.

Yes, very important. Going up in salinity is very stressful for fish and cannot be done quickly. Going down in salinity is much less of a problem.

 

[snorvich]

Just my observation: There seem t be an abnormally high number of flame angels that don't make it. This is a very widespread fish and I would guess that the source of the fish may play into it. Many places in the Philippines, Indonesia, and just labeled "Indo-Pacific" do not handle fish well and cyanide collection is still used in some places. Countries with a zillion islands can't possibly enforce their collection laws and I avoid fish from those places.

Also, the appearance varies by location. I seem to recall Hawaii and Christmas Island locations are the best from a collection perspective.

 

[snorvich]

The fishes were drip acclimated....

For how long? What was the SG of the transport water? What was the SG of the QT water?

 

[bangbangkhan]

It was acclimatized to the at tank and for 1.5 hours.