angelfish help

[SeanTrollope]

so i noticed my male angelfish acting strange. he was just sitting at the surface seemibly gasping for air. all the other fish in the tank are acting normally.

when i switched the lights on to have a better look he started swiming funny and then began doing flips. now he has stopped and is just sitting lodged in a plant facing down. he does seem a little fatternthan normal but it has been a few days.

as i added 4 cories and some plants yesterday the NO2 i expected to spike. i tested the water a moment ago and the reading was at 0,5 mg/l

what do i do.

 

[aussieant32]

I would do a water change to deal with the nitrite.

Do you have something like seachem prime?

 

[SeanTrollope]

okay he litterally had an outburst of speed and then he settled on the floor shaking and then died.

 

[SeanTrollope]

 

[SeanTrollope]

even worse is that his mate (i raised many babies from this pair and they were paired for 5+ years) is searching the whole tank for him

 

[aussieant32]

sorry to hear

 

[SeanTrollope]

lets just hope hes in a better place.

but i want to know what happened so that i can prevent it in the future. its really bugging me as i have never had this happen. and i have never lost a bigger fish in this manner. especially since i have owned so many and raised them myself. what could have happened to cause this.

 

[SeanTrollope]

also is it okay for angelfish to live without another angel fish. i know that adding angelfish to a tank is very troublesome as i have done it many times before but that was with big fish. if i were to add another one now it would be a lot smaller than the one i have got left and i have a feeling that this would be a bad idea.

 

[fluttermoth]

It's not ideal to keep them alone, on the other hand it can be so difficult to introduce another that it's sometimes inevitable. Angels do okay alone; they won't suffer like a shoaling fish would.

If you do want to try and introduce another, you'll have to add a group of at least six youngsters and wait for them to pair up naturally. Angels do not take kindly to having their mates chosen for them, even if you could sex the young ones, which is nigh on impossible.

As to what killed yours, it could well have been the nitrite. Anything over 0.25ppm can be fatal and the fish's behaviour would support that hypothesis, as nitrite binds to the fish's blood and stops it being able to take up enough oxygen from the water. You'll always get some fish that are more sensitive to these things than others, so it can only affect one fish (and it is often the larger ones that are affected).

Oh, I should have said; you shouldn't be getting nitrite spikes after adding a few fish; that's a worry. How big is your tank and what filtration are you running? What fish were in there before you added the corydoras?

 

[SeanTrollope]

i am aware of this as i bred angel fish for some time. thanks for the reply.

i did plant the tank yesterday as well, inevitably i seriously disturbed the substrate. i also have a new (diy filter as mentioned in another thread) and it is still very sensitive to disturbances. it is 5 l and has a max of 1100 l/h although i have set it to somewhere around 500-600 l/h.

there were the two angels and 7 x ray tetras.

i am not precisely sure of the volume of the tank as it is a curve glass that my neighbor left behind when he moved. i found it lying next to the road but if you look at the thread "what am i doing wrong" there is a much more detailed description of everything as well as pics.

 

[fluttermoth]

Can you give the dimensions of the tank, please? I will say it looks very small for angels

 

[SeanTrollope]

50 cm high
61 cm long
38 cm wide(at its widest part)and 32 cm(at its narrowest)
it is a B shaped tank

to me it looks to be a branded tank because i have seen some like it before but did not take notice

 

[SeanTrollope]

from what i have calculated it is about 100-120 liters.

 

[SeanTrollope]

right so the NO2 has come right down to 0 i am really relieved

 

[Byron]

The tank is not adequate space for angelfish, so please do not get more. Some would allow a mated pair in this space, I would want more space. But the survivor should be OK alone.

Like fluttermoth, I would be concerned over nitrite spiking. Perhaps something else was going on here...any medication lately? Other additives?