Help With Sick Angel

[confusion]

I have an angel that appears to be sick. I bought it and another one about 3 weeks ago from a very reputible LFS. One of the angels are doing great, and the other is not.

- The symptoms are: mostly hangs out at the bottom of the tank
- Looks "up" a lot
- Is not interested in eating
- Is getting pushed around by the current from the filters more than a fish it's size should
- I have observed very infrequent head shaking

It started about a week ago when I noticed that the angel had what looked like some blood just below the surface of it's skin in the corner of it's mouth. It also had a very very thin line of blood under the surface of the skin that started below it's lower lip and runs about 1/2 straight down.

It had been eating up until today, though yesterday it was completely uninterested in flakes and would only go for freeze dried bloodworms, which appear to be it's favorite.

The other fish seem to be doing fine, though
About the tank:
125G, heavily planted, 400W of CF lighting, pressurized CO2 dosing, 2 Rena XP3 filters
Temp: 80F
PH: 6.6 to 5.9 (depending on the time of day)
GH: 80ppm
Ammonia: 0ppm
Nitrite: 0ppm
Nitrate: <10ppm
Water changes: 50% weekly
Tank mates:
5 angels
8 GBRs
2 gold gouramis
1 moonlight gourami
5 black skirt tetras
3 honey gouramis
3 pearl gouramis

Thank you for reading this. I would very much like to save this fish, if at all possible.

 

[Tolak]

You have two out of three for internal protizoans, the third being white stringy feces. Not eating, or being slow to eat, along with hanging out towards the back or far corners of the tank are the other two.

I've posted this little thing numerous times, have a copy & paste;

Put the angel in a quar tank, I usually use a 10 gallon. Increase the temp over a day or so to 90-94F. Treat daily with 40 mg/gallon metronidazole, with 50% water changes daily. If the fish isn't eating, don't feed for the first 3 days. After 3 days, get some frozen brine shrimp. Take a portion about the size of a few match heads, and sprinkle on some metro. You have to eyeball this one, make the shrimp look kind of like a tiny powdered donut. Once it thaws, mix it in & feed. Sometimes they still don't eat for a few days, but once they start to mouth the food & spit it out, the meds seem to get in their system real good. Continue medicating the water & food for 7-10 days.

Metronidazole is sold as flagyl, het-a-mit, and a few other names I can't recall offhand, used to treat hexamita & hole in the head. They usually suggest 20mg/gallon, this often isn't enough. Metro deteriorates in 8 hours, so you could do twice daily water changes. I've done this on the weekends when I have time.

Don't let the high temp scare you, angels can handle higher than that. I've had them as high as 98 due to a broken heater. Just make sure to have only angels in the tank at that temp. Make sure to have plenty of aeration also, as warmer water holds less O2.


I've also added epsom salt while using metro, this helps with any constipation issues, cleans out the digestive tract. I start with 1 teaspoon per 10 gallons of water, increasing by 1 teaspoon daily for 2 more days to bring it up to 3 teaspoons per 10 gallons. You will have to adjust how much you use when doing water changes. You may want to give this a try.

 

[confusion]

Thanks, Tolak. I will do that.