More Help With New Angels

[confusion]

So, I've had a pretty bad run of luck with getting new angels. I have a 37G cube that has a 2 dwarf gouramis, 2 mollies, 2 swordtails and an existing angel, which I got about 1.5 weeks ago.

Anyhow, I got 2 juvi angels - one on Friday and one on Sunday morning (yesterday). I had actually gotten 2 angels on Friday, but one was dead by Saturday. It's gills were bright red and it ended on it's side breathing heavy before it died.

My tanks stats are good 0 0 and close to 0 due to planting. For the 2 I got on Friday, I did a drip acclimation over about 70 minutes before releasing them into the tank. On advice from another post, I had added 1TBSP/10G of salt to the tank before hand. So, from those 2, one died pretty much right away and the other has been somewhat social, but mostly hiding and not eating anything.

For the angel I got yesterday (to replace the dead one), I did a 90 minute drip acclimation. The water still has 1TBSP of salt/10G. Both angels are primarily hiding and not eating or showing any interest in food.

I've been treating the tank with the jungle tank buddy parasite meds, again on advice from a previous post. I DO think that has helped, as some of the previous angels (from weeks ago) would exhibit symptoms of swimming up an down rapidly, and dying pretty quickly.

In my tenure of fish keeping, which isn't incredibly long, but very eventful, I have developed a law: "fish that don't eat within a day of acclimation, and continue to not eat are going to die". I like to think I've gotten pretty good at dealing with problems like ich, popeye, fin rot, etc, without missing a beat, but I've hit a wall on what I need to do to help these fish.

PS - both of the angels are out and about right now, but they don't seem to stay out for long.

Any suggestions?

 

[Tolak]

Metronidazole.

 

[confusion]

That's one of the key ingredients of jungle's anti-parasite meds.

 

[Tolak]

Sure is. How many mg per gallon, and are you dosing the food with it? What percentage of those tabs is metro?

 

[confusion]

There's no indication as to what % of metro is in the dose. They are fizzy tabs. The dose is 1 tab/10G, so I do 3. I tried putting some food in early on, but since the fish that are having the problem aren't eating, I don't think it helps much, and I didn't do that on this last round.

 

[Tolak]

I posted how to use metro here; http/www.fishforums.net/index.php?showtopic=155688&hl=

That's what works, an increased dosage. Those tabs may be based on a dosage of 20mg/gallon of metro, maybe less. Increasing the temperature, along with the water changes is needed as well.

You could also try looking for a local breeder. If I recall correctly, from your previous topic you were getting some of the fish from Petsmart. If you are near a large city, there is bound to be an aquarium club reasonably close. If you are in a more rural area, check the club in the closest city. You would be surprised how many breeders live further out from the city, space for numerous tanks is cheaper. Many larger breeders think nothing of driving 6 or 8 hours to a larger auction or swap. You may be able to contact someone locally who has solved the problem years ago, or at least get a better quality fish from someone passing through.

 

[confusion]

Good points. I did not raise the temperature - thanks for reminding me of that.

I'm sure there must be some kind of breeding club in the Atlanta area.

 

[Tolak]

Here ya go; http/www.atlantaaquarium.com/