Are angels super sensitive to water quality?

[JoLtNbolt]

Hey all!

I just added 5 small gold veil angels to a 25 gallon tall tank with 6 madagascar rainbow fish, 2 juvenile silver mollys, and 2 baby blue crawfish (1 inch in size). The fish seemed to be doing fine, and then I went to work a double shift and was away from home for about 14 hrs. When I got back, the angels were all sort of laying around the bottom of the tank, and looked to be struggling. I also noticed that the baby crawfish were attacking them. I suspected that the water quality must be the problem although the other fish seemed to be doing well, so I immediately removed the angels and placed them into my 2 gallon betta tank which just had a water change the day before. For some reason I was only able to find 4 of the angels... the 5th one had completely disappeared!!! The angels seemed to perk up and start swimming around in the betta tank once i removed the betta to a bowl. I then did a 60% water change in the 25 gallon tank, and replaced the angels. They seemed to be doing fine, then I got home the next day after another double shift, and the angels seemed to be sick on the bottom of the tank again, so i put them back into the 2 gallon tank where they are doing fine again. Any thoughts on what is wrong? Did my other fish eat the 5th angel? I have one of those ammonia monitors that is supposed to change colors when levels become elevated, but there has been no change in color.

 

[Fiori]

Hi JoltNbolt

I strongly suspect your blue crawfish ate your angel - and will probably proceed to eat all your other fish as well. They are not good additions for a community tank, I'm afraid. Also, do you have a larger tank for your angels to move into? They grow fairly quickly and will soon be far too big for your 25 gall. Your rainbows will also grow to about 6 inches apiece, so you are going to be majorly overstocked.

There are other thngs to look out for in water quality, other than ammonia - Nitrites and Nitrates being the main ones. It might be a good idea to buy a testkit that will check for these as well - is your tank cycled? Post all your stats and how long the tank has been set up for and this will help in diagnosing the problem.

 

[JoLtNbolt]

The tank is about 6 weeks old. I started out with 2 rainbows, then added 4 more over time because i found out that they are schooling fish, and then later found out that they reach 6 inches . Then a friend gave me 2 silver mollys. I started the tank and added the product CYCLE which is supposed to help establish the bacterial colony, although i've read that these types of products don't actually help. For filtration I have an undergravel filter that is connected to an Eclipse II hood that filters the water with activated charcoal and then sends it to a biowheel.

The baby crawfish seem to get along with all of the other fish... or the other fish are just too speedy to get caught by the crawfish. They're just about 2 cm long so I think maybe they were only able to get to the 5th angel because it was not adapting to the tank/water conditions and was stuck on the bottom of the floor.

I have a test kit on order, but It hasn't arrived yet.

Looks like i'm going to have to get a larger tank or give some of these fish away.

 

[inflexion]

the blue crawfish are the problem, ive read a thread on here about how a member was cought out by them kept it none the less and has learnt about them so i suggest you go find it and read on how its going to terrorise everything else in the tank!

 

[Fiori]

There have been quite a few posts about blue crawfish/lobster - if you do a search on "lobster", you will get a lot come up to have a look at for info.

 

[RabidChild]

A 25 gallon tall tank is only big enough for 2 full grown angels on their own so yeah, a bigger tank is probably a good idea if you are going to keep them. The blue lobster needs to go, or maybe stay in the 25 gallon on it's own (not sure if that's big enough though I think they can get to be about 1' long)

I would suggest getting a real test kit with at least ammonia/nitrate/nitrite. If you just added cycle your tank isn't cycled yet since that stuff is useless. That's probably why the angels are having problems.

 

[IMCL85]

angle ain't as sensetive as discus. And a good idea is use a bigger tank to avoid angle being eat again they just too slow to run away from catfish. So never keep them together.