Flameback angel death

blazedbeef · Oct 8, 2021

I picked up a Flameback angel from my lfs today, and acclimated it for an hour adding water from my tank to the bag it was in every 10 min. I added it to my 25g with a clownfish and a bicolor blenny. It swam down to the bottom part of the tank and stayed hidden in a cave for a couple of hours. 4 hours later the fish is becoming more comfortable in its new home and is swimming around exploring the tank. Then I cut flow to feed my fish and the angel swims to the top peaks it’s head out of the water like my clown does when it knows it’s time to eat. All of the sudden my new fish stopped swimming and floated down to the bottom of the tank and died. Im devastated I have no idea what happened or where I went wrong. Could anyone let me know if I did something wrong? Maybe it was too stressed? Maybe I got a sick fish? I’ll appreciate anyone’s input.

Tamberav · Oct 8, 2021

Did you test the salinity in the bag and your tank? If they run theirs fairly low then an hour wouldn’t be enough.

However if the salinity matches or very close then acclimating for an hour only adds to stress.

If I need to drip fish then they go into new water in a bucket that matches their salinity bag water with an air stone and then dripped from there. If it is way off then I will take a few days to bring it up in quarantine.

I basically have salt at 1.025 and rodi on hand so can add rodi to the salt water to bring it to match so I can get them into clean water before I drip.

Mr. Mojo Rising · Oct 8, 2021

A Flameback Angel should be in a tank at least double your size. I'm not saying thats what killed it, but sooner or later that would have become a major problem

blazedbeef · Oct 8, 2021

Tamberav said:
Did you test the salinity in the bag and your tank? If they run theirs fairly low then an hour wouldn’t be enough.

However if the salinity matches or very close then acclimating for an hour only adds to stress.

If I need to drip fish then they go into new water in a bucket that matches their salinity bag water with an air stone and then dripped from there. If it is way off then I will take a few days to bring it up in quarantine.

I basically have salt at 1.025 and rodi on hand so can add rodi to the salt water to bring it to match so I can get them into clean water before I drip.

My tank was at 1.025 and my LFS has theirs at 1.024. I acclimated it that way because I don’t have anything to drip acclimate it with and it’s worked plenty of times in the past.

Tamberav · Oct 8, 2021

blazedbeef said:
My tank was at 1.025 and my LFS has theirs at 1.024. I acclimated it that way because I don’t have anything to drip acclimate it with and it’s worked plenty of times in the past.

If the salinity is that close, you don't drip. You float and release or do a very quick acclimation. I try to have anyone out of the bag in 30 min and into new water/QT/Tank, whatever. Sitting the bag for an hour without flow and such... its just extra stress and potential ammonia (ammonia more so for shipped fish). An angel is a lot more delicate and has a higher oxygen demand than say a clownfish. Adding something like stressguard is helpful for anything you have to drip although new water is better. Aeration too.

There is also travel time from the moment the fish is bagged to your house.

I believe Jay went over this in another thread recently. Acclimation issues generally show up in the first 24 hours. Drip is definitely more dangerous with shipped fish and they can die right in the bag.

I obviously can not say this is 100% what it is but it is very possible. Stress is a big killer as well.

52728299 · Jun 18, 2022

Tamberav said:
If the salinity is that close, you don't drip. You float and release or do a very quick acclimation. I try to have anyone out of the bag in 30 min and into new water/QT/Tank, whatever. Sitting the bag for an hour without flow and such... its just extra stress and potential ammonia (ammonia more so for shipped fish). An angel is a lot more delicate and has a higher oxygen demand than say a clownfish. Adding something like stressguard is helpful for anything you have to drip although new water is better. Aeration too.

There is also travel time from the moment the fish is bagged to your house.

I believe Jay went over this in another thread recently. Acclimation issues generally show up in the first 24 hours. Drip is definitely more dangerous with shipped fish and they can die right in the bag.

I obviously can not say this is 100% what it is but it is very possible. Stress is a big killer as well.

Hello, I'm looking for answers and think you may be able to assist. I received the flameback angelfish in the mail, it was shipped over night and I received it last Thursday. Today I was adding cuc to the tank and everything seemed fine. After a couple hours of having my arm in the tank plopping snails down I found the angel had passed. He had been in the tank for about 2 and a half days so I don't believe it was acclimation that got him. He spent his time amongst the rocks so it was difficult to see if he was eating but I try and give a variety as I give a frozen blend.

Tanks 53 gallons
Other fish include 2 ocellaris clowns, a midas blenny, a royal gramma, a yellow watchman goby, a purple firefish and a melanarus wrasse. His coloring was good, he hadn't been picked on as far as I could see his fins were good and no kind of wounds. I'll give a picture of the food I've been giving, I took the 4 different cubes and put them in a food safe squirt bottle with some tank water and mix it all together and feed 2-3 times a day..

Also, ph is at 8.3, nitrate ammonia and phosphate all undetectable and salinity is 34 ppt

Thinking he either wasn't eating or it was stress or both.. I didn't even know anything was wrong he seemed to be doing well..

JumboShrimp · Jun 18, 2022

You never know what salinity you will get from an LFS. Last week I picked up two fish, from 2 different tanks about 15 feet apart. One of the LFS fish was bagged at 1.023 and the other 1.028.

Tamberav · Jun 19, 2022

Aluco said:
Hello, I'm looking for answers and think you may be able to assist. I received the flameback angelfish in the mail, it was shipped over night and I received it last Thursday. Today I was adding cuc to the tank and everything seemed fine. After a couple hours of having my arm in the tank plopping snails down I found the angel had passed. He had been in the tank for about 2 and a half days so I don't believe it was acclimation that got him. He spent his time amongst the rocks so it was difficult to see if he was eating but I try and give a variety as I give a frozen blend.

Tanks 53 gallons
Other fish include 2 ocellaris clowns, a midas blenny, a royal gramma, a yellow watchman goby, a purple firefish and a melanarus wrasse. His coloring was good, he hadn't been picked on as far as I could see his fins were good and no kind of wounds. I'll give a picture of the food I've been giving, I took the 4 different cubes and put them in a food safe squirt bottle with some tank water and mix it all together and feed 2-3 times a day..

Also, ph is at 8.3, nitrate ammonia and phosphate all undetectable and salinity is 34 ppt

Thinking he either wasn't eating or it was stress or both.. I didn't even know anything was wrong he seemed to be doing well..

Acclimation is a possibility if salinity was fairly different or the fish was left in a bag too long with rising ammonia but it also could have been stress in such a short time.

Food would not be the issue here... fish can go many weeks without eating unless already very thin.

It is really hard to pinpoint deaths without symptoms of disease or more information.

davidcalgary29 · Jun 19, 2022

I haven't liked the look of many flame angels (or many other wild-caught angels) coming through my "L"FS over the past few months. If you can't abide the thought of a very lovely captive-bred coral beauty or lemonpeel angel, then I'd join a local facebook group and wait for a fish that's come from an established tank. They do pop up, even here in Canada, once or twice a year on average. That's how I acquired most of my fish, and they arrived (and have stayed) fat and happy.

52728299 · Jun 19, 2022

Tamberav said:
Acclimation is a possibility if salinity was fairly different or the fish was left in a bag too long with rising ammonia but it also could have been stress in such a short time.

Food would not be the issue here... fish can go many weeks without eating unless already very thin.

It is really hard to pinpoint deaths without symptoms of disease or more information.

Yea unfortunately I didn't test the bags water salinity.. I really have no idea either just how long he was in the bag. He shipped over night but idk when he went into the bag. I got him into the tank pretty quickly.. this was my first time ordering fish online and having them delivered.. really puts me off on the whole idea.

I am pretty discouraged from this not gonna lie.. after setting up getting a tank ready to be a good home for these fish and I didn't even give him a chance and now I don't even know what went wrong..

Tamberav · Jun 19, 2022

Aluco said:
Yea unfortunately I didn't test the bags water salinity.. I really have no idea either just how long he was in the bag. He shipped over night but idk when he went into the bag. I got him into the tank pretty quickly.. this was my first time ordering fish online and having them delivered.. really puts me off on the whole idea.

I am pretty discouraged from this not gonna lie.. after setting up getting a tank ready to be a good home for these fish and I didn't even give him a chance and now I don't even know what went wrong..

Yea, this hobby can be frustrating sometimes. Shipped fish are a bit of a gamble depending who you order from but even with the best care sometime fish do not make the trip.

If you try again, I would recommend a Pygmy angel from KPA aquatics as you are buying directly from the diver/collector which means less transfer from facility to facility and less stress. These fish are from Florida area instead of being shipped halfway around the world. They generally will fair very well from KPA.

Pygmy Angel

The pygmy angelfish, Centropyge argi, also called the cherub fish, is one of the few relatively reef safe angelfish from the Caribbean. Just how reef safe they are might be debated, but because of their small size they don’t pose much of a threat to corals or other non mobile invertebrates...

www.kpaquatics.com