Urgent Advice Needed

[PaulEbs]

I currently have an adult Marbled Angelfish with increasingly growing finrot on his caudal fin..

The tank stats are:
PH - 8
Ammonia - 0
Nitrite - 0
Nitrate - 15

So the waters a good quality at the moment, although have just gone through a stage of high nitrites reaching 0.8 at one point. But the finrot started before the bad readings.

It started out quite slowly, and we medicated with Interpet Anti fungus & finrot, although I put the carbon filter back in the tank after a few days as I was told water quality beats meds in mose cases. I think it's the carbon filter that has helped reduce the nitrite spike.

But now the finrot is terrible, and my other angel [they are a breeding pair] keeps nipping at the ragged fins. making the marbled finrot angel have to hide.

I have a spare 16" high Hexagonal tank that I could quarantine him in, is this advisable?

Should I re-dose and take the carbon back out?

Any advice would be extremely appreciated, as the rot seems to worsen by the minute

Thank you.

 

[The-Wolf]

personally I think IP finrot med is rubbish
for bad finrot I'd use a combination of melafix and pimafix.

issolating him would enable you to have more control over the meds and you'll use less due to the smaller gallonage.

(remove carbon/zeolite and turn off UVs when treating for anything)

 

[PaulEbs]

Thanks for the quick reply.

I have put the angel in a hospital tank, he seems very docile, but not too bothered.

I managed to get a shot of his tail...

I medicated the hospital tank with the correct dosage, and took out the carbon in the filter.

What would be the best foods for him at the moment? Are there any temperature differences that may help a poorly fish?

Cheers,
Paul.

 

[denis coghlan]

hey paul

I have read that when treating fish with meds you should bump up the temperature to the max that the fish will take. This will increase the metabolism of the fish and in turn help speed up cell growth. Regarding food, I would feed a high protein food e.g. bloodworm, brine shrimp etc... this will also help induce cell growth and increase recovery time.

hope this is some help.

Great looking fish by the way!

 

[Tolak]

If that angel has been the only angel in with a breeding pair, I doubt it's fin rot. The center of the tail is the easiest target for aggressive angels, that's why the center looks more torn up. All the meds in the world won't help, you need to keep that fish in another tank, or at least get a divider. I do water changes daily or every other day for angels with torn up fins.

Sometimes finrot will set in on a really beat up angel, that angel doesn't look too bad. Often angels in a pairing situation will do more damage to each other before they sort things out.

 

[Harif87]

Finrot is usually cause by bad water conditions so make sure everything is in check. If everything seems fine then like Tolak said it could very well be from aggression.

Also if im not mistaken (which i might be) isnt melafix only to prevent bacterial infection while the fish has finrot? I mean i know that it doesnt "heal"finrot because finrot isnt a disease is just an episode (just like popeye), but it just protects the wound while its open.......

 

[KathyM]

What I've found in my experience is that angels can develop "finrot" as a secondary symptom to stress, with the water quality even being fantastic. My angels developped tatty fins which got worse and worse, and we used Finrot meds which didn't work. The only treatment plan that worked for us was from advice from a very experienced fella who told us to try Waterlife Protozin and a 1% salt solution (1 teaspoon per gallon). This worked a treat - presumably because it hit whatever the angels had from both angles - funal and bacterial.

I've since seen someone else's angels develop very similar (possibly the same) illness just from being moved to a different tank. They used King British "Disease Clear" (with silver) and that seems to be working well, although I think the Protozin/salt method worked faster.

 

[PaulEbs]

Tanks A Lot, have also read that this may help, so will do a bit more research and turn the temp. up a little to speed up the process, and I'm going to feed him bloodworm today as he didn't touch the flakes last night

Tolak, please read carefully.. He is one of the breeding pair, and I've already quarantined him. His partner, the other angel, only started chasing his rotted tail once it had got to a certain point.

Harif87, the tank stats are fine, although we did encounter high nitrites last week. But the finrot was caused before the nitrite spike.

KathyM, Sorry kathy, I did take note of your advice in the New World Cichlids forum.. Just wanted to test out a medication. So you recon 1 teaspoon of salt per gallon, and some protozin? I think I'll try the med till the end of this week, and if no signs of repair then your way it is!

Thank you for your replies.

 

[KathyM]

Hiya Paul - 1% is one teaspoon per gallon, yeah. It's basically an easy low dose salt solution - you can build it up over time to 2 or 3%, but then there's a risk to plants/plecs, etc, so we couldn't (you're best off asking someone else's advice if you want to go stronger). Remember if you do the salt solution that you need to replace salt when you do water changes (so measure what you take out and put back in carefully and dose at 1tsp per gallon accordingly).

I'm not sure how soon you can use Protozin after another med, so hopefully someone on here can advise on how long to leave it before treating with that?

 

[Tolak]

Sorry, it's been a busy week, multitasking gone awry. Often with pairs of angels, it's tough to tell which came first, the nipping or the fin rot. This is especially noticable in darker angels, blacks look real bad with just slight damage, marbles aren't much better. The same damage looks much less severe on a gold or silver.

You did the best thing seperating them, often plenty of fresh water is all that is needed for nipping. The lack of availibility of meds in the UK sucks, a quick round of antibiotics is all that is needed if it is finrot. Another one to try is epsom salt, it helps many things, and can be used with a wide variety of meds.

 

[PaulEbs]

I've decided to start putting a teaspoon of salt in every gallon water change, daily, as well as the medication.

Rasta [the marbled angel] seems to be a little more fruity, and ate some bloodworm last night

His tail seems to have slowed down on the rotting side of things, although the white spiney bits that were sticking out amongst the rot have now been eaten away too.

I have pushed the temperature up to 28 C over the last 3 days, and plan to keep it there.

Does anyone know whether it is just illegal for the stronger medications to be sold in the UK, so we can import them for home use? I recently read that the active chemical to stop fungal infections that used to be in our medications is now illegal, so the new treatments are no way as good?

Cheers.

 

[hogan53]

I currently have an adult Marbled Angelfish with increasingly growing finrot on his caudal fin..

The tank stats are:
PH - 8
Ammonia - 0
Nitrite - 0
Nitrate - 15

So the waters a good quality at the moment, although have just gone through a stage of high nitrites reaching 0.8 at one point. But the finrot started before the bad readings.

It started out quite slowly, and we medicated with Interpet Anti fungus & finrot, although I put the carbon filter back in the tank after a few days as I was told water quality beats meds in mose cases. I think it's the carbon filter that has helped reduce the nitrite spike.

But now the finrot is terrible, and my other angel [they are a breeding pair] keeps nipping at the ragged fins. making the marbled finrot angel have to hide.

I have a spare 16" high Hexagonal tank that I could quarantine him in, is this advisable?

Should I re-dose and take the carbon back out?

Any advice would be extremely appreciated, as the rot seems to worsen by the minute

Thank you.

 

[PaulEbs]

 

[Tolak]

I believe you can get the meds through a vet, though I don't know how willing they are with prescribing meds for fish. Those same meds are available over the counter or on line in the US. Many of the same antibiotics are used for humans, if you can find a pill happy doctor & fake a sinus infection, you should be well supplied for a while.

 

[PaulEbs]

Rasta must have died last night, as I've woken up to see him lying on the floor, with greenish gills, dead.

The fin rot looked as if it was going to heal, so why this sudden death? Could it have been shock and confinement in a smaller tank?

If anyone could give me any ideas to how he might have died, that would be really appreciated. I don't understand his death and it really sucks too

Nevermind, my breeding pair are no longer.. Is it possible to introduce a new male to a female and them become a breeding pair? Will the other angel become aggressive towards another angel?

Cheers,

Paul.