Sudden Angle Fish Death

[Don Trinko]

I bought 6 small blk Angels from the local store the 14th. All were fine this morning when I fed them. Several hours latter 3 are dead and the other 3 are not very active.
Water tests: 0 nitrite, 10 nitrate, hardness 7, ph 7.5, and temperature 76. This is a 29 gal tank that has had 3 albino cats and a bunch of guppies in for several months.
I had a similar experience with silver angels but ultimatly I got 5 silver angels ( different tank) to live and they are fine. ( I ultimately bought 8 or 9 and five lived)
I also have 3 gold Angels in yet another tank and they are fine.
When I bought the blk Angels I slowly added water to the bag to balance the ph and temp. I have a ph probe. They came from the dealer at ph of 6.9. I added water ( 2 oz at first and 4 oz as the ph got closed to my tank ph. It took abought 1/2 hour for this proccess
Any Ideas what went wrong? The fish store say's that angels are touchy. They will give me my money back but ultametly I would like to have blk Angels. Thanks; Don T.

 

[thegnu]

hi,
being black angels they must have been tank bred so anything you did/didn't do wouldn't have caused their deaths. params ok. my guess is they were ill when you got them and the move tipped the scales so to speak. how are the fish that are left in the tank in the LFS

 

[Don Trinko]

2 more have died. The last one is fine. It's hard to tell how the ones in the store are. They get fish in on tuesday and by the next tuesday they are all gone. I have no way of knowing how many were sold and how many died. The Manager is very cooperative. He said that angels and neons sometimes die on him also.
I just don't like being the "cause of death". One breeder say's that angels have been inbred so much that they are rather frail. ( he say's his aren't because they breed fish with diffenent ancestry)
I had angels when I was younger, even bred them, and did not have this problem. ( when I was younger Black angels were expensive and tank raised Discus were just starting to be available. ) Thanks; Don T.

 

[Tolak]

There is some inbreeding involved in angels, more so with blacks & koi. If they aren't locally bred in water the same or similar to yours there can be problems.

Try drip acclimating over a couple of hours, then transfer to a quar tank illluminated only with room light. Don't feed for the first 24 hours, and feed sparingly the next few days.

 

[KathyM]

I'm in a rush at the moment, but have had similar problems - try looking at some of my old threads and see if it sounds similar - sorry to hear about your losses