# What is killing my angel fish?



## emc7 (Jul 23, 2005)

At the fall auction I got some half dollar size angels and a trio of wild caught A. caucatoides. The apistos looked somewhat sunken bellied but otherwise ok. The angels were perfect. I put them together in a 29 with an established filter from another tank. One fish at a time would stop eating, sink to bottom, swim funny (like it was paralyzed) and die within two days sometimes gettng stuck to the filter intake along the way. There were no visible wounds or fuzzies on the body. There was some erosion of fins. Every time I did a massive water change, even thought the quality of the water was tested ok (except for low pH 5-6) and moved the affected fish to a five gallon. The other fish seemed unaffected. I changed the filter for one with a lower flow and kept up with water changes, and the dying seemed to have stopped. But today I lost another angel in the same tank. It was fine 3 days ago. What kind of disease is dormant for months and then kills suddenly. How do I treat it and prevent spreading it to all my tanks? I always drain my hospital tank and let it dry after a fish dies. Do I need to bleach it too?


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## TheOldSalt (Jan 28, 2005)

Lots of diseases can lie dormant for months & then strike. Flukes are one, internal trematoes ( gut flukes ) are another, cestodes are another, and viruses are another.

You first obvious mistake was in mixing wildcaught rams with tankraised angels when those rams has visible problems.

Treat for flukes & other internal parasites. Keep everything as stable as you can in the meantime. Angelfish are especially prone to viral infection, and need stability to prevent outbreaks.


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## Guest (Mar 26, 2006)

I would treat that whole tank with flubendazole. I bet you have some type of internal parasite in your tank.


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## Sprite42 (Mar 10, 2006)

Also, angels like warmer water...about 80 degrees. If the water is too cold they will die.


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## emc7 (Jul 23, 2005)

Thanks. I've kept a lot a fish but I'm new to diseases.


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