Angel Fish

[spannerman]

I put some Tubifex in my community tank and the water went very cloudy after a couple of days. It wouldn't clear and I ended up doing 50% water changes for at least 4 days to dilute the haze.
I removed all of my fish ( about 20 ), stripped the tank of all the furniture and fittings and gave the gravel a good vacuuming, during the process I lost half of the fish, I think due to stress.  
It's now cleared, but now my angel fish doesn't seem to know which way up it should be, or that it should eat, it appears to sort of 'fall asleep', and sink wherever it is.
Any help would be appreciated as I don't want to lose it

 

[Davy Reynolds]

I'm not sure whats wrong with your Angel. It could be the bladder or something in the blood.

The best the here to learn from it and not to let it happen again.

The Tubifex I assume was a frozen block. These frozen block usually have aditives which should not enter your aquarium. You should always rince these blocks, even live packed foods under the tape to rid them of these additives, most of which is usually salt. The best way I do this is I have a very small net. This hold the food while I can rince it.
You would have been fine doing the water changes. But I never ever recomend doing a total overhaul.

The best thing to have while keeping fish is a second emergency tank. If a total clean job was required you can simply move the fish at the eairly stage of anything going wrong. Your fish may have died from stress, plus all other aspects involed in a overhaul of your tank.

A second tank would allow you to start your tank fresh and allow it to cycle.
Then the fish could be moved back and with little or no losses.