Angel Fish Help - To Euthanise Or Wait?

[Spishkey]

my largest angel has had a terrible terrible fight with a crayfish while ive been out (it had to have been the crayfish im sure)

anyway its lost its top and bottom long fins (the ones it uses to stabilise itself in the water im guessing)
it cannot swim properely at all and is just going round and round in circles at an almost sideways angle..
its only fin damage i know and it will heal i guess but im worried about the affect the constant spinning around is going to have on the angel. its wearing itself out. ive quarantined it into a small tank for now so it cant do itself too much more damage and can get to food easier.



what should i do? it looks so sorrowful spinning round and round and round

 

[Colin_T]

Give it 24 hours and see how it looks. If it is still spinning around tomorrow then it probably won't recover and you should euthanase it. Making the water shallow should help it to stabilise and hopefully spin less. You can also put the fish into a fish net with a weight in the bottom. The weight will hold the net down and the angel will sit in the net and hopefully not spin around.

If it does survive then monitor it for secondary bacterial of fungal infections. Bacteria will show up as red and inflamed, fungal will be white and fluffy.

 

[Spishkey]

thanks for the info, sadly i dont have a net big enough to put it in but ive lowered the water level and i'll put some rounded rocks in there to make 'dips' in the bottom that it can hopefully rest upright on.

IF it seems 'ok' tomorrow and not spinning so much, how often should i be looking at doing water changes to keep the water as clean as possible, and should i add any melafix (?) to help heal wounds?

 

[Colin_T]

I wouldn't feed the fish in the hospital tank until it is swimming around normally again, and therefore you shouldn't have to do many water changes to keep the tank clean. But you could do a 50% water change each day with some water from the display tank, or do 30% water changes with tapwater that has been dechlorinated and has the same temperature as the tank.

Melafix/ Pimafix can be added to help prevent possible infections but make sure you increase the surface turbulence when you add it. But don't have too much water movement otherwise the fish will get blown around.