New Member Angelfish Problem Nobody Know The Answer Please Help

[fishmansam]

Hi all thank you for taking the time to help me any info is greatfully recived.

My problem is several years ago i bought a pair of breeding angels. One got and infection and sadly died at this time i hadnt a clue if it was the male or female. So one has been around a year in its own tank and the missis has been telling me to find it a mate so i did on saturday i bought on off ebay a lad who was selling all his fish to start up again.(i bought a grown fish as all aquatic places only had angels about a inch tall and mine is around 4-5 inch).

So here where my problem starts i notice them fighting not alot but the new angel seem to be the one who starts it off by biting/ blind hitting then they would jaw lock. On monday night the missis called me up saying the new angel was on its side swimming in a circle i went up and thought that mines gone and killed it. I got the fish upright and it was swimming backwards after around 5 min its was fine. I then kept getting up every 2-3 hours to check on it and it was fine (i left the tank light on),

The next day tuesday i returned from work to find a slate covered in eggs and all was looking good so i left them to it not to stress them out. On wednesday i came in late around 11.30pm to find it again on it side and then when i put the light on it shot across the tank hitting into everything at a good pace on it side and again after 5 mins or so with the light on it was ok so i left the light on all night.

Any ideas to my problem ive never done any water quality checks. everytime it happened i did a slight water change and left the light on my other angel has never done anything like this nor was it any different the last few days.

 

 

[Joshwainwright]

You should really check the parameters of your water - ammonia and nitrate mainly. 
 
If you only had the one angel previously, adding a second one could have caused your filter to go into a mini cycle and you could have ended up with a spike of ammonia or nitrite.
 
Ideally, you should have been doing 50%+ water changes when you saw the odd behavior but the best thing for you to do now is check your water and take it from there - unless of course you don't have a test kit. If you don't already have one, I highly recommend the API Master Test Kit which you can get for about £20. You should also do a generous water change immediately too if that's the case

 

[Wills]

Sorry Josh but I disagree... adding a fish to a well established tank (7 years is well established) I would say adding a new fish is going to be zero problems mini cycles caused by adding fish are generally when a tank is very new, someone has set up a tank without reading up on any kind of cycling or if a tank has become very run down in fish numbers and then it starts to grow again. So long as the tank was above half of decent stock it will be fine.
 
I think in this situation doing large water changes will cause more problems than good. The new fish is very stressed right now and a large water change could cause disease outbreak or result in the stressed fishes and/or the original angelfishes death... I think regular maintenance will do nicely - maybe one or two smaller extra ones might not hurt but I dont think essential.
 
Rather than water quality issues this will be aggression and behavior issues. Angelfish are Cichlids and adding any adult Cichlid to a community style tank with other adult Cichlids in rarely goes smoothly (African set ups differ here, but not important right now).
 
If I had to guess what is going on your old angelfish is a female the new one has been added, the new one has been beaten and the old female has laid eggs as a sign of dominance. I have a female Severum that does this all the time - lay eggs by her self simply to gain an area of territory. You will know if this is the case if the eggs are infertile which will show up in a day or so.
 
How is the new Angelfish now? Are the fins torn or damaged? Are there any signs of blood streaking in the body or fins? Sometimes Angelfish lay down due to stress but not for long periods so there is a chance if they are having trouble staying buoyant this is a risk the swim bladder is damaged. 
 
Is it possible to separate the new Angelfish at all? Do you have a spare tank and filter etc? Or do you have a divider in the tank? A big bucket, heater and filter would do nicely or a large plastic tub.
 
I would dose the tank with melafix and primafix which will both help heal any battered fish.
 
What other fish do you have in the tank? What size tank is this as well?
 
Hope that helps
Wills

 

[fishmansam]

The new one is a female and the orignal is a male. The fish is in perfect condition no fins ripped looks well fed ect there are no other fish in with the pair. The tank is about 2.5 ft by 1.5 ft then 2 ft tall i do have other tanks i could set up if needed also i was goin to try and divide the tank. The same thing has happened agen tonight switched the light on and it was all over the place now seem to be doing ok would it be that the person i bought it off kept it in a 24 hour lit tank and it just not used to the dark?

The eggs have been moved now and are wiggling about im goin to start my brine shrimp on sunday for them as by monday/tuesday the yolk sac will be gone.