New Angelfish in bad health

[depthC]

I got two angelfish from petco, them seemed fine but now ive noticed one of them is in pretty poor shape. Here is a pic :



There are nipped fins on the top and back tail, sorry dont know the fin names. And also there is a pale, white patch or area on the back fin as you can see in the picture.

The angelfish is in a 45g Tall 36",12",24" high, it is freshly and completely cycled. It has 2 angelfish in the tank and 2 german blue rams. All the other fish are perfectly healthy but this one has the problem. I even did a 50% waterchange today so the water parameters are in a good range.

I dont have a extra tank to quarantine the fish in so maybe ill need to buy a spare 10g. What can i do? Please help me out fast it has stopped eating.

- depthC

[AmazonTankz]

Wow, that is real brutal depthC. I doubt that this has been caused my the other angel or blue ram...you would have seen them picking on him and I have never seen an angel with this bad of fin damage from other fish. His bottom fin is so far gone...I really hope he makes it.

I have to say it looks like someone is ripping him to shredds but because of the reasons above, I'm thinking its probably fin rot. Pay close attention to your other fish to see if this is happening to them. How long has it been since you bought them? I would deffinitly put in Melafix to help with this. Melafix has never failed me with fin rot or other fin damage.
Good luck, best wishes!

[Orion]

From what I have seen in my own tanks with other fish picking on angels is they usually go for the long extentions right underneith the body first, and then the tail and other fins. So Im going to say that it very well could be fin rot. Follow Amazon's sugestions and see what happens.

You said that it was not eating. Have you tried giving it frozen or live bloodworsm or brine shrimp? Mine absolutly love the stuff.

Hope you start to see some improvement very soon.

[depthC]

Yeah so well for the malafix method. Im so bummed out right now, i just got home and i found the sick one dead. And even worse his fins have been nipped even further. And even worse then that the other angel has some fin nippige and 10+ spots of ich. It was clearly fine yesterday. I dont know what to do but im so down right now. Could it be my rams doing this? There has to be some internal fighting but i havent seen any. I dont see how this could be fin rot as the fins are broken and gone if varous places. I dont know what to do.

- depthC

[depthC]

As for what they were eating. I have been feeding them Tetra Cichlid Small Granuales. All the other fish have been eating them, but i guess it must have just been to sick to eat.

Anyways ive only had them for 4 or 5 days now. And i didnt notice this when i got them so it obviously developed in my tank.

Ive just checked the water parameters and they were
NH4 - 0 ppm
N02 - 0 ppm
N03 - 10-40 ppm
Temp. - 82d F

Other then that i dont see what is wrong, but i know it has to be something with the water conditions. Even the rams have spots of ich on them when they were healthier in my 10g.

What i plan to do unless anyone chooses to differ is do a 50% water change and dose malafix and maracide to treat the fins and ich. Does this sound right?

Also i plan on bringing the dead angelfish to Petco with my recient and get my water checked. I dont care if they cant replace the fish i just want to know whats wrong with my water.

- depthC

[AmazonTankz]

Man depthc, I am really sorry...I was afraid it was to late for him...

I still say is it fin rot, at least over nipped fins. If the rams were doing this, then they would have had to be almost contantly to get his fins looking as bad as they did. You would have most deffinitly seen them in the act.
Also about the rams, I have seen them kept with Discus and Veil Angels, so that can't be fin nippers.....

As for the ich and your water condition....isen't 10-40ppm of NO3 in the dangerous zone?? I haven't had a NO3 test kit so I;m not real familiar with the readings...but I think this is to much!
The temp is fine, and actually better for the ich at 82d. 80-82d is what my tanks are set on..

I would do a water change, but maybe not a whole 50%, I would cut it back to 40%...you would probably be fine with 50% but like I said, you don't want to stress them more.

I haven't ever had to use 2 meds at the same time, but I don't think it will be a problem (espectially since melafix is all natural) but if someone knows different please correct me...

Go ahead and take the fish to petco see what they say....hopefully they are knowledgable.

[depthC]

I did a 50% water change and added the 4.5 tsp of malafix to the tank. Im didnt add the maracide yet, but im going to wait another day to do so if i need to. Even this angelfish that is still alive has some fin damage now but i think its nipped fins because the fins are gone in different places and i dont see how rot could of did this. Anyways i already flushed the dead angel and i wasnt going to keep it for another day to bring it in because it would of been to rotten already.

So i did a 50 change and added malafix and ill be waiting till tomorrow to see if the malafix has affected anything and then ill dose the maracide tomorrow if needed. Anything else i should do?

Edit: N03 is nitrate and 10 ppm surely isnt harmful but getting up to 40 im not to sure so ill recheck the nitrate level later tonight to see what it has dropped down to since the 50% change.

- depthC

[depthC]

I checked the nitrate levels and they are in the 5-10 ppm range so they are much better but i could have done another 25 to make it zero but its too late i already dosed the malafix and maracide. So far they seem to be getting some more ich spots but i only expected this since i just introduced the med. Ill update in a day or two to tell you if they are making any progress.

- depthC