Angels Fins Disappearing

[lealou]

I have 3 angel fish that i have recently moved to a larger tank that was already established, very quickly 2 of them have developed what looks like fin rot. There is one particularly bad one who seems to have hardly any fins left and is either on the bottom of the tank vertical, or upside down. The other looks minor like it's just been nipped, and the third is not showing any symptoms at all.
The tank they are in is a tropiquarium 88, 130 litres, they are in there with a cichlid, 2 ghost fish and a catfish. I tested the water with the freshwater master test kit, ammonia and nitrite were 0ppm, but the pH was a little high between 7.5 and 8, i was going to add some pH down today.
I have also been treating them with melafix.
I can't think of anything else that could be causing this as the other fish look fine.

 

[loachman]

I have 3 angel fish that i have recently moved to a larger tank that was already established, very quickly 2 of them have developed what looks like fin rot. There is one particularly bad one who seems to have hardly any fins left and is either on the bottom of the tank vertical, or upside down. The other looks minor like it's just been nipped, and the third is not showing any symptoms at all.
The tank they are in is a tropiquarium 88, 130 litres, they are in there with a cichlid, 2 ghost fish and a catfish. I tested the water with the freshwater master test kit, ammonia and nitrite were 0ppm, but the pH was a little high between 7.5 and 8, i was going to add some pH down today.
I have also been treating them with melafix.
I can't think of anything else that could be causing this as the other fish look fine.

what kind of cichlid? it's possible they are being nipped.

 

[Miss Wiggle]

what type of catfish and ghost fish as well!

some catfish can be aggressive and if for example they are black ghost knife fish they are also aggressive.

need details of the species to rule out harassment

don't bother with the pH down, a stable pH is most important and if it's going down rapidly this will likely stress them out further.

what's your reading for nitrate?

 

[lealou]

what type of catfish and ghost fish as well!

some catfish can be aggressive and if for example they are black ghost knife fish they are also aggressive.

need details of the species to rule out harassment

don't bother with the pH down, a stable pH is most important and if it's going down rapidly this will likely stress them out further.

what's your reading for nitrate?

They are ghost/glass catfish and have been with the angels for about 3 years. The catfish is a synodontis and the cichlid is a mbuna (i can't remember the full name). The angels are the same size or if anything bigger than the cichlid, and from what i've seen they are the aggressive ones in the tank, the cichlid seems to be content in his hole/root and i've never seen aggressive behaviour from him.
Nitrates were 0ppm

 

[Miss Wiggle]

what sort of synodontis?

the angels and mbuna are both likely to be aggressive. one thing to be very conscious of is just because you've not seen violence does not mean it isn't happening. a lot of fish prefer the cover of dark to attack or bully other fish so while they may seem peaceful in the day there's still a chance they're scrapping at night or simply that you haven't caught them at it.

the mbuna shouldn't be in that tank, they should only be kept with other mbuna, and possibly some other african cichlids depending on which species we are talking about. They are lively active fish if he just stays in one place (as implied by your comment about him being happy in his hole/root) I would suspect he is quite the opposite and actually hiding because he is unhappy.

My gut feeling is that the angels are dominant in the tank and this stresses out the mbuna, scared he will sometimes lash out causing nipped fins, which can easily become infected and lead to cases of fin rot, if this is happening on a regular basis the fish will be stressed out and therefore struggle to recover even with appropriate medication.

the nitrate reading in itself is worrying, if the tank is cycled you should have some nitrates, if it's not cycled you will have some readings for ammonia/nitrite. Can you please do some more water tests and double check those readings, if there is a problem with the water it would definately exacerbate the situation described above. Nitrate tests can be a bit dodgy, you should make sure you follow the instructions to the letter, shake the bottles for the full minute when it say's to etc.

 

[lealou]

what sort of synodontis?

the angels and mbuna are both likely to be aggressive. one thing to be very conscious of is just because you've not seen violence does not mean it isn't happening. a lot of fish prefer the cover of dark to attack or bully other fish so while they may seem peaceful in the day there's still a chance they're scrapping at night or simply that you haven't caught them at it.

the mbuna shouldn't be in that tank, they should only be kept with other mbuna, and possibly some other african cichlids depending on which species we are talking about. They are lively active fish if he just stays in one place (as implied by your comment about him being happy in his hole/root) I would suspect he is quite the opposite and actually hiding because he is unhappy.

My gut feeling is that the angels are dominant in the tank and this stresses out the mbuna, scared he will sometimes lash out causing nipped fins, which can easily become infected and lead to cases of fin rot, if this is happening on a regular basis the fish will be stressed out and therefore struggle to recover even with appropriate medication.

the nitrate reading in itself is worrying, if the tank is cycled you should have some nitrates, if it's not cycled you will have some readings for ammonia/nitrite. Can you please do some more water tests and double check those readings, if there is a problem with the water it would definately exacerbate the situation described above. Nitrate tests can be a bit dodgy, you should make sure you follow the instructions to the letter, shake the bottles for the full minute when it say's to etc.

The root is bigger than i made out and actually takes up half the tank. The cichlid was with others of the same kind for years but he and the catfish are the last left and we thought that the angels being the same size/bigger and cichlids would be ok in the tank especially as there were no other males of his kind to get territorial with. I think you are right tho, i watched them with the tank light out last night and he was being quite frisky and patrolling around so we'll move the angels.
sorry i misread yesterday and meant to say the nitrites are 0ppm, we don't have a test for nitrates at the moment

 

[Miss Wiggle]

by all means move the angels, give them a chance to recover in a hospital tank or something like that,

however keep watching that mbuna, with the angels not there he might just move on to other fish as his next target.

in all honesty i wouild re-home him and then you'd be unlikely to have more problems (except possibly from the syno depending what species he is, but without an ID it's impossible to say)