Dying Angel Fish

[angjools]

HELP! my angel fish appeared to have fin rot so yesterday i bought some esha 200 to treat it. i tested the water first and all was perfect so went ahead with treatment, it said if you have soft water to give double dose (as we use OR water which is soft)so i put 100 drops in as required in a 200 litre tank. all seemed fine til this morning, my two cooli loaches were dead and my only angel is lying on the bottom gasping. the other fish, 2 dwarf gouramis and catfish are fine. i quickly put the venturi on to get some oxygen in and put the carbon back in the filter to clean the water. i dont know what else to do, it doesn't look good.

 

[Lolly123]

HELP! my angel fish appeared to have fin rot so yesterday i bought some esha 200 to treat it. i tested the water first and all was perfect so went ahead with treatment, it said if you have soft water to give double dose (as we use OR water which is soft)so i put 100 drops in as required in a 200 litre tank. all seemed fine til this morning, my two cooli loaches were dead and my only angel is lying on the bottom gasping. the other fish, 2 dwarf gouramis and catfish are fine. i quickly put the venturi on to get some oxygen in and put the carbon back in the filter to clean the water. i dont know what else to do, it doesn't look good.

Firstly, have you cycled the tank? And what are you using to test with, if it is strips then they are notoriously inaccurate. Liquid kits are the best, like API.

Saying your water is perfect doesn't give us much information, we need numbers for ammonia, nitrite, nitrate and PH at the least. How old is the setup, what is your maintenance regime like, when did the disease start to show and how long have you had the fish?

I would start with a large water change just in case you do have raised levels. It will dilute the meds, but if your problems are caused by poor water quality then I think it will be a good place to start.

Oh and just to add, carbon will suck up medication, you need to take out the carbon if you plan to treat the tank and you are sure what you are treating for.

 

[angjools]

HELP! my angel fish appeared to have fin rot so yesterday i bought some esha 200 to treat it. i tested the water first and all was perfect so went ahead with treatment, it said if you have soft water to give double dose (as we use OR water which is soft)so i put 100 drops in as required in a 200 litre tank. all seemed fine til this morning, my two cooli loaches were dead and my only angel is lying on the bottom gasping. the other fish, 2 dwarf gouramis and catfish are fine. i quickly put the venturi on to get some oxygen in and put the carbon back in the filter to clean the water. i dont know what else to do, it doesn't look good.

Firstly, have you cycled the tank? And what are you using to test with, if it is strips then they are notoriously inaccurate. Liquid kits are the best, like API.

Saying your water is perfect doesn't give us much information, we need numbers for ammonia, nitrite, nitrate and PH at the least. How old is the setup, what is your maintenance regime like, when did the disease start to show and how long have you had the fish?

I would start with a large water change just in case you do have raised levels. It will dilute the meds, but if your problems are caused by poor water quality then I think it will be a good place to start.

Oh and just to add, carbon will suck up medication, you need to take out the carbon if you plan to treat the tank and you are sure what you are treating for.

hi,
it is a new tank, we got it last week as our old one started leaking. we transfered everything across except the fish and put new OR water in it, instead of tap water as previously used as we were told it's much purer. we added extra bacteria as instructed to boost it. after a couple of days of running it through we added the fish. one angel, 2 dwarf gouramis, 4 upside down catfish and two coolies. all seemed good til yesterday when i noticed the angels fins were raggy so asked at the aquarium place and was advised the esha 200. he told me to test the water first and if all good then treat,

amonia was 0, nitrites 0, nitrates 10, ph 8.5 , water temp 27 tested with proper phials and tablets. i can only assume it was the meds that killed the coolies and made the angel worse which is why i put the carbon back in to filter it out. i didnt have time to do a water change this morning cos of work, but also wasn't sure as i knew the water was ok prior to the meds. did i overdose cos of doubling the dose? it did say to double it in soft water? the angel is about a year old. the only other thing i can think of is that the old tank was 55 litres and the new one is 200 litres so it may be shock. any ideas. is it too late for the angel? he is upside down now but still alive.

 

[Lolly123]

Im not to great with meds and diseases so i'll leave that to someone else to advise you better.

If you transferred the filter and the media to a new tank that had no fish, then it is quite possibly that you have lost quite a bit of filter bacteria, if it has nothing to feed it, then it will die off. Even with the bacteria boosters, they generally don't work and again if you've got nothing to sustain it, you'll lose quite a bit of the good bacteria you've built up.

For me personally, I really wouldn't recommend using RO water unless you have to, yes it is pure, but i'm almost certain that you'll have to add back the trace elements, minerals and buffers. I'm not even sure if RO water has any buffering capacity at all, which could mean you have problems with sustaining a stable PH. If you've taken fish that have been used to tap water and put them in pure RO water then i'm surprised you dont have more problems. You say your PH is at 8.5, I dont understand that if you're using RO, maybe i'm not knowledgeable enough to work that out, but something just doesn't seem right.

Some people use part tap water and part RO water, but this is done slowly to ensure your fish aren't shocked by the change in parameters. I've used tap water for about 5 years now with my tanks and have never experienced a problem that was down to my water supply.

Hopefully someone with a bit more experience can help you.

 

[angjools]

ok thanks anyway. there are so many things to learn and everyone tells you something different, you think you are doing the right thing and often it turns out wrong! i thought i was helping and now i fear i may have killed him. oh well, back to the drawing board eh!

Im not to great with meds and diseases so i'll leave that to someone else to advise you better.

If you transferred the filter and the media to a new tank that had no fish, then it is quite possibly that you have lost quite a bit of filter bacteria, if it has nothing to feed it, then it will die off. Even with the bacteria boosters, they generally don't work and again if you've got nothing to sustain it, you'll lose quite a bit of the good bacteria you've built up.

For me personally, I really wouldn't recommend using RO water unless you have to, yes it is pure, but i'm almost certain that you'll have to add back the trace elements, minerals and buffers. I'm not even sure if RO water has any buffering capacity at all, which could mean you have problems with sustaining a stable PH. If you've taken fish that have been used to tap water and put them in pure RO water then i'm surprised you dont have more problems. You say your PH is at 8.5, I dont understand that if you're using RO, maybe i'm not knowledgeable enough to work that out, but something just doesn't seem right.

Some people use part tap water and part RO water, but this is done slowly to ensure your fish aren't shocked by the change in parameters. I've used tap water for about 5 years now with my tanks and have never experienced a problem that was down to my water supply.

Hopefully someone with a bit more experience can help you.