HELP PLEASE!!!!! Angelfish declining, ick or columnaris???

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primsloaches16

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Hey yall. I've had two angelfish for about 4 months now, and recently one of them has been declining in health and acting strangely. She is the smaller of the two (they are a mated pair). She used to be super active and stay close to the male, but lately she has been very lethargic and wont eat much, her breathing is quick so I added a large airstone to increase oxygen. I noticed small white dots and also small white patches on her. The male angel also has 2 small dots on his fins. I've been researching all day and am unsure what to treat for. I'm also nervous using medications since I have scaleless loaches and corydoras who are sensitive to meds. I dont have a quarantine tank and my research says if one fish has an illness it's likely all fish have it. I recently did a large water change but am hesitant to medicate. I'll post photos of how shes looking. PLEASE HELP! She is the angel with more black on her in the photos, the primarily gold one is the male.
 

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I love these fish so much and will do anything to save them, the one who is sick her name is Wanda, please send her good wishes. I love her dearly.
 
I really cannot see the dots with the picture. Did you happen to add any new fish to your tank recently. Your description sounds really like Ich but I don't have a lot of experience with fish diseases. @Colin_T seems to be one of the most knowledgeable about fish diseases. If it is Ich then one of the areas it attacks heavily is the gills of fishes. If it is Ich you should start treatment soon but I would first try as hard to get a positive ID first.
 
Thank you guys for your response! I ended up setting up an emergency 10 gallon for Wanda and Vision. I used some filter Media from their home tank and also bottled beneficial bacteria. I have the tank at 82° with HOB and airstone, dosed with aquarium salt, super ich cure (api), pimafix (api), stress coat + prime water conditioners, and a bacterial remedy. (Will add pic of all the things I'm using). She seems to be doing alright but is still lethargic. Vision is super active. I will be doing 50% water changes every day but only re-dosing the conditioners, ich cure, and salt. Thank you guys! If you have any treatment suggestions please let me know!
 

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Thank you guys for your response! I ended up setting up an emergency 10 gallon for Wanda and Vision. I used some filter Media from their home tank and also bottled beneficial bacteria. I have the tank at 82° with HOB and airstone, dosed with aquarium salt, super ich cure (api), pimafix (api), stress coat + prime water conditioners, and a bacterial remedy. (Will add pic of all the things I'm using). She seems to be doing alright but is still lethargic. Vision is super active. I will be doing 50% water changes every day but only re-dosing the conditioners, ich cure, and salt. Thank you guys! If you have any treatment suggestions please let me know!
Also, there has been no new additions to their regular tank recently. It's an established 65 gallon with 10 silver tip tetras, 4 dojo loaches, 8 kuhli loaches, 10 emerald corydoras, 4 upside down cats, 2 half banded spiny eels, a mystery catfish (have a previous thread about him) and some snails. It is a heavily stocked tank but is heavily planted and its cycle is stable. I have a aquaclear 70gal filter and large airstone for its filtration. Their only significant change recently is that there was a breakout of hair algae on a floating sword plant but it was removed, a minor change is that they've been on a more flake than pellet based diet since I ran out of their bug bites but all food is in date. Everyone gets along well in the tank behavior wise as well. I keep the water in the main tank around 77-79°. Slowly upped the temp in the QT tank since it is recommended for ich.
 
The best cure for ich is heat. That is a lot of stuff you have put in your tank.
The medications? I thought it would be best to do the ich, bacterial remedy, and pimafix since I'm not 100% sure on the illness, and I figured covering all of my bases would be best. Is that not recommend?
 
The medications? I thought it would be best to do the ich, bacterial remedy, and pimafix since I'm not 100% sure on the illness, and I figured covering all of my bases would be best. Is that not recommend?
Not really. You should only try to cure something that you know the fish have.
 
Mixing medications is a quick way to poison fish. Most medications are dosed at a level high enough to kill microscopic organisms but not high enough to kill the fish. However, if you mix medications, you can easily overdose the tank and poison the fish.

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How long has the fish had the white dot on the pectoral (side) fin and the tail?
If the white dot on the pectoral fin and tail have been there for more than 1 week, it is not white spot.

The safest way to treat white spot is to raise the water temperature to 30C (86F) and keep it there for at least 2 weeks, or 1 week after all the white dots have disappeared.

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The white marks on the face are Hole in the Head disease and minor cases can be treated with salt and clean water. More advanced cases need Metronidazole.

Hole in the head disease is caused by Hexamita and generally occurs in cichlids kept in dirty tanks, overstocked tanks, or tanks that don't get cleaned enough.

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Treatment is as follows.
Wipe the inside of the glass down with a clean fish sponge.

Do a 75% water change and gravel clean the substrate every day for 2 weeks. The water changes and gravel cleaning will reduce the number of disease organisms in the water and provide a cleaner environment for the fish to recover in. It also removes a lot of the gunk and this means any medication can work on treating the fish instead of being wasted killing the pathogens in the gunk.
Make sure any new water is free of chlorine/ chloramine before it is added to the tank.

Clean the filter if it hasn't been done in the last 2 weeks. However, if the filter is less than 6 weeks old, do not clean it. Wash the filter materials/ media in a bucket of tank water and re-use them. Tip the bucket of dirty water on the garden/ lawn. Cleaning the filter means less gunk and cleaner water with fewer pathogens.

Increase surface turbulence/ aeration when using salt or medications because they reduce the dissolved oxygen in the water.

Add some salt, (see directions below).

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SALT
You can add rock salt (often sold as aquarium salt), sea salt or swimming pool salt to the aquarium at the dose rate of 2 heaped tablespoon per 20 litres of water.

Keep the salt level like this for at least 2 weeks but no longer than 4 weeks otherwise kidney damage can occur. Kidney damage is more likely to occur in fish from soft water (tetras, Corydoras, angelfish, Bettas & gouramis, loaches) that are exposed to high levels of salt for an extended period of time, and is not an issue with livebearers, rainbowfish or other salt tolerant species.

The salt will not affect the beneficial filter bacteria, fish, plants, shrimp or snails.

After you use salt and the fish have recovered, you do a 10% water change each day for a week using only fresh water that has been dechlorinated. Then do a 20% water change each day for a week. Then you can do bigger water changes after that. This dilutes the salt out of the tank slowly so it doesn't harm the fish.

When you do water changes while using salt, you need to treat the new water with salt before adding it to the tank. This will keep the salt level stable in the tank and minimise stress on the fish.
 
I don't think it's ich when the fish only has two white dots and other fish are not affected.

There are a few things that you have to check.

1)Did you add any new plants or fish for the last "one month"? Plants and fish can carry parasites with them.

2)How often did you change the water? And how much water you change each time?

3)Did you feed them with any live food or frozen food which can cause parasitic infection?

4)When a fish is breathing fast, it's either there is toxic(high ammonia, Chlorine, chemical, etc) in the water or its having gill flukes(parasites) infection.
Did you change enough water each week and not to overfeed them which can cause high ammonia?
Did you remember to put enough water conditioner to neutralize the Chlorine and Chloramine?

For gill flukes infection, when the fish is having fast breathing, it means its at terminal(last stage) condition.
Another symptom of gill flukes is the fish will be scratching against objects or the tank glass.
 
I don't think it's ich when the fish only has two white dots and other fish are not affected.
Also, there has been no new additions to their regular tank recently. It's an established 65 gallon with 10 silver tip tetras, 4 dojo loaches, 8 kuhli loaches, 10 emerald corydoras, 4 upside down cats, 2 half banded spiny eels, a mystery catfish (have a previous thread about him) and some snails.

Although I suggested it might be ich earlier, if there have been no additions to the established tank it is likely not Ich.
 
I admit I hadn't changed the water in about 3 weeks, but the ammonia levels stayed in the .02 or less ppm based on my ammonia indicator in the tank. I've been having a tough time mentally and it has effected my maintenance but my most recent wc (3 days ago) was 50% when I noticed she was ill. I will replace the water in the qt tank and only dose with salt and beneficial bacteria. They do get frozen bloodworms around every other day for my eels but 95% of the worms are target fed to the eels using a pipette, I give a very small amount to the Angel's and dithers as a treat. I appreciate the help in all of this I feel quite dumb, I havent had any cases of fish illness other than my betta getting dropsy, and by the time I noticed that she had passed in the next few hours. I'm hoping my Angel's will pull through. Will keep updated!
 

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