What can I do for this Flame Angel? (Heavy breathing and on bottom of tank)

[s1oliver]

Cloudy water could be an indication of higher ammonia levels or a bacterial bloom, a bacterial bloom isn't harmful to fish though so that wouldn't be a problem. If it was ammonia the other fish would be reacting to it as well so I'd lean towards a disease of some kind and have them remove the fish. It sucks for sure but someone mentioned at least putting the fish in a bucket with a heater and air stone to give the fish a chance. I can't speak on Angel fish but I know I've brought my clownfish back from what I thought was certain death on two separate occasions. Clownfish are pretty resilient though so probably not a good comparison. I always keep a bag of chemipure on hand just for incidents like this one where it could possibly help improve water quality enough to make a difference. Good luck man, hopefully he pulls through.

 

[Spare time]

OH - I almost forgot! The sitter says the water is a bit cloudy. What could be causing this?

Also, I just did a 20% water change before I left.

For all of you fish problem sleuths helping me, I thought maybe some of these details might help.

Thanks for all the input!

That would likely be a bacterial bloom, usually a result of decaying matter (i.e. dead fish or a bunch of rotting food and feces in the mechanical filter. That could definitely lower the oxygen

 

[Spare time]

Cloudy water could be an indication of higher ammonia levels or a bacterial bloom, a bacterial bloom isn't harmful to fish though so that wouldn't be a problem. If it was ammonia the other fish would be reacting to it as well so I'd lean towards a disease of some kind and have them remove the fish. It sucks for sure but someone mentioned at least putting the fish in a bucket with a heater and air stone to give the fish a chance. I can't speak on Angel fish but I know I've brought my clownfish back from what I thought was certain death on two separate occasions. Clownfish are pretty resilient though so probably not a good comparison. I always keep a bag of chemipure on hand just for incidents like this one where it could possibly help improve water quality enough to make a difference. Good luck man, hopefully he pulls through.

Not necessarily related to ammonia. Ammonia doesn't cause cloudiness. Rather, its heterotrophic bacteria having a grand feast, which could in turn create ammonia if the tank's ammonia reducing organisms handle all of the decaying matter.

 

[s1oliver]

Not necessarily related to ammonia. Ammonia doesn't cause cloudiness. Rather, its heterotrophic bacteria having a grand feast, which could in turn create ammonia if the tank's ammonia reducing organisms handle all of the decaying matter.

Misunderstanding on my part then, thanks for the explanation.

 

[SharkRacer]

UPDATE: He died.

Other than him getting pecked away overnight by the cleaner shrimp, can anyone tell see any signs of disease on these pics?

 

[SharkRacer]

(Love your sea glass; did you collect it yourself?)

Thanks! I bought it on Amazon - I think it was (2) 2lb packages

 

[SharkRacer]

Lets rewind a bit. This tank was fully cycled correct? Then you added the fish correct? All at once? Whats the water volume?

Here's my tank:

Tank is 13.5 gallons

I did a fishless cycle with Dr Tims for ~3-4 weeks. I had added bio media from my DT as well, and it took a while but I saw the tank able to process 2.0 amonia down to 0 in ~48 hours before I added fish.

Then I added this lot of 5 critters:

- 3 Bengai Cardinals
- Flame Angel
- 6-line wrasse
- Cleaner shrimp

I bought them all at Petco so wanted to be sure to observe/QT for a month before adding to my DT.

 

[s1oliver]

Here's my tank:

Tank is 13.5 gallons

I did a fishless cycle with Dr Tims for ~3-4 weeks. I had added bio media from my DT as well, and it took a while but I saw the tank able to process 2.0 amonia down to 0 in ~48 hours before I added fish.

Then I added this lot of 5 critters:

- 3 Bengai Cardinals
- Flame Angel
- 6-line wrasse
- Cleaner shrimp

I bought them all at Petco so wanted to be sure to observe/QT for a month before adding to my DT.

You added too many fish too fast and your biological filter couldn't keep up with the demand. The other thing is that's a lot of fish for such a small tank, I have a 13.5 gallon and only keep two fish and I'm hesitant to add a third one even though the tank is over 2 years old. The flame angel requires a bigger tank, I think minimum for that fish is 35 gallons or more so he was stressed out big time with that many fish in that small of a tank. The six line will be the same way, you're going to need to find a bigger tank for it because they require about 30 gallons minimum. Maybe someone has kept one in that size tank but it's definitely not recommended. The most I'd do in the future is add one fish every week but preferably two weeks and let the biological filter build up to handle the increased bio-load gradually.

 

[SharkRacer]

Thanks @s1oliver - My plan was to move them all to my 55 gallon as soon as I knew there was no Ick or Velvet, and maybe I was a bit too ambitious with adding this many at once.

 

[doubleshot00]

Here's my tank:

Tank is 13.5 gallons

I did a fishless cycle with Dr Tims for ~3-4 weeks. I had added bio media from my DT as well, and it took a while but I saw the tank able to process 2.0 amonia down to 0 in ~48 hours before I added fish.

Then I added this lot of 5 critters:

- 3 Bengai Cardinals
- Flame Angel
- 6-line wrasse
- Cleaner shrimp

I bought them all at Petco so wanted to be sure to observe/QT for a month before adding to my DT.

Yeah you definitely added to many to quickly. Its most likely an ammonia spike that killed him. Had this happen once in QT. I wouldn’t be surprised if you get home and they are all dead.

 

[Cali Reef Life]

Thanks @s1oliver - My plan was to move them all to my 55 gallon as soon as I knew there was no Ick or Velvet, and maybe I was a bit too ambitious with adding this many at once.

It's sad but a lesson learned. I lost a fish in QT last month wouldn't eat. I have lost 3 fish in 5 years to qt well letting a sick fish bring in ich and brook killed 7 of my fish in 1 week early on. Things to think about in qt flukes treatment and copper treatment. Here's a badge to detect levels and I do a WC every 2 to 3 days well fish is in QT. Your making the right move just happened to make a mistake it happens to best of us can only improve. I would have medication on hand so you can treat 2 or 3 main things if you see them. General cure and copper would be a good start to have on hand.

 

[SharkRacer]

@Cali Reef Life and @doubleshot00 - I do have the Seachem badge in the tank and it seems to be in the "9 o'clock" color, which is not perfect, but only the first level of "bad" on the scale.

I am going to have the sitter dose every other day until I get home on Sunday. Fingers crossed I don't lose any other fish!

Thank you both (and all of you on this thread) for this thoughtful feedback, I really appreciate it!

 

[JumboShrimp]

The main thing is , just learn for next time without getting discouraged. We've all made similar QT/new arrival mistakes.

 

[s1oliver]

Thanks @s1oliver - My plan was to move them all to my 55 gallon as soon as I knew there was no Ick or Velvet, and maybe I was a bit too ambitious with adding this many at once.

Okay, I wasn't aware you planned to move them so that's good at least you have a bigger tank for them. Definitely a good idea to QT them especially since you got them from Petco but just a bit fast adding them all at once is all. Hopefully once everyone is settled you can add another flame angel in there.

 

[SharkRacer]

Is there a way for me to test for any diseases in the tank? Otherwise, how will I know if these fish are OK to move to my display? Do I need to reset the 1 month QT clock since the Flame Angel died of unknown causes?

 

[ZombieEngineer]

Here's my tank:

Tank is 13.5 gallons

I did a fishless cycle with Dr Tims for ~3-4 weeks. I had added bio media from my DT as well, and it took a while but I saw the tank able to process 2.0 amonia down to 0 in ~48 hours before I added fish.

Then I added this lot of 5 critters:

- 3 Bengai Cardinals
- Flame Angel
- 6-line wrasse
- Cleaner shrimp

I bought them all at Petco so wanted to be sure to observe/QT for a month before adding to my DT.

This is way too many fish for that size QT. I won't even put that much in my QT and it's a 30 gallon biocube with substantial filtration. A 13 gallon tank is big enough to QT just 1 flame or a single pair of banghai.

If you buy anything from petco, observational only QT is a recipe to crash your display tank. Petco fish almost always have ich at minimum and other parasites/flukes are really common. A perco purchase pretty much requires preventative copper and prazi.

 

[s1oliver]

Is there a way for me to test for any diseases in the tank? Otherwise, how will I know if these fish are OK to move to my display? Do I need to reset the 1 month QT clock since the Flame Angel died of unknown causes?

I'm not aware of a way to test for diseases but if you removed the shrimp you could run copper through the QT as a preventative measure before moving them to the DT. Invertebrates are sensitive to copper so just make sure any you have in there are moved before you start treatment. I'd test your parameters prior to even doing that just to check the basics and make sure nothing is out of whack that could point to a potential reason the flame angel died. In regards to the copper treatment I'll defer to the other folks on here who have experience with it to comment on that. If nothing else just search the forums for copper treatment and I'm sure you'll quickly find some good directions.