Angel fish with a strange flakey white stuff

[epsolon77]

I dont really know how to describe it, but it almost looks like a slimey version of dandruff on my new angels. I've raised angels before and have never seen this. I love the coloration on these fish and want to keep them. Your experiance is appreciated. The fish are not acting differently at all. They will not eat the anti biotic food, but they do taste it and just spit it out. The readily gulp down the flake food they are used to.

My tank perameters are all pretty close to 0 except nitrates which is at 1ppm. My temp is staying steady at 78 and PH is a constant 7.5. The tank is a 20 high and has been running for about 2 months now. I did a live cycle with guppies and took most of the guppies out moment before adding my angels. There are 5 angels in the tank and 3 guppies. The tank has a corner bubble filter, I think it's a lee's medium corener, and a cascade 1000 that is shared with 3 other small tanks. I estimate the output to be about 40-60 gph from the canister. I did a 25% water change about 5 days ago and do this about every 7 to 14 days. And yes I do vacume the gravel. There is a little bit of food that gets stuck in some hornwart I have in there, but it is not fuzzy and the guppies do a good job of picking it up within 48 hours. The affected fish I've had for 2 weeks this friday. One of the angels is showing no signs and I've had him for a month. I dripped water in, about 5ml every 20 seconds for about 15 min while the bag was submersed to even the temp. I then netted the fish out of the bag. Nothing new to the tank. I have been titration the water with PH down for the past week to try and bring the ph closer to a 7, but it's not moving the PH at all despite a dose a day. I alternate feeding blood worms and flake food to my angels. Blood worms are a treat about once a week. All the other time I feed tetramin flake food.

 

[mfdrookie516]

a few things that jump out at me...
-5 angels in a 20g tank. One angel needs at least a 30 gallon tank.
-sharing a canister between 3 tanks is not a good idea (though not associated with the sickness of course)
-acclimating for only 15 minutes. i acclimate mine for a minimum of 30 minutes, most for an hour or more
-adding ph down. please stop this immediately. this will foul up your water quicker than anything and cause the ph to be uncontrollably unstable. Ph down is like putting a bandaid on a cut that requires extensive stitches. A stable ph of 7.5 is perfectly fine for angels, no need to mess with it.

It looks to be some sort of fungus to me. I would start dosing pimafix and melafix daily along with a 50% daily pwc. Antibiotic food is mainly used for internal parasites, something i highly doubt you're dealing with

 

[epsolon77]

Thank you for the advice. I will start treating for fungus immediately. I understand the concern with the sharing the canister, and will be hooking up a UV filter to minimize cross contamination. Also your point about 5 to a 20 as being tight, and you are correct. However this is only until they grow up some. They are about nickle size now and I have several tanks ready for some angels. Also I would like to correct the sizing. As long as the fish that are in there are compatible, aka you don't have breeding pairs in with other fish, 10 gallons per fish is can be comfortable. I have a breeding pair in a 20 tall that are more than happy. But yes, 5 angels to a 20 tall is not going to happen. I would guess I have about 4 months before they will be moved, but am ready now.

 

[epsolon77]

One more question, why malefix and not malachite green?

 

[mfdrookie516]

i will not use medicines in my tank except pimafix and melafix. theyre both all natural, extracted from some sort of tea leaves. they do no harm to the nitrifying bacteria, dont stain things, are of no risk to the fish, and smell pretty good too Im real big in to the "if it aint natural, it aint goin in my tank" thing, so thats one of the main reasons i choose it, along with the fact that its like the wd-40 or duct tape of meds

 

[dkpate]

What about the only 1ppm of nitrates? You want nitrates.
+1 for the Pima and Mela. But I have to say, the Melafix makes your house smell like a hospital. Pimafix smells a little better lol.

 

[epsolon77]

Malafix smells much better than dead fish.

You don't really WANT nitrates in your tank per say. They are a good indication that the nitrifying bacteria are working. In my case the tank is heavily planted with swords and hornwart, the latter suckes up nitrates like a sponge. So I do have a good reason why there is little nitrate in the tank. Good catch though!

I'm all for the natural method so long as it works. This really doesn't look like any fungus infection I've seen, but I'm not doubting your diagnosis, and if you've seen this before, and malafix fixed it, I really don't care if it's fungus or not. And I also had malafix sitting around the house as part of my first aid kit anyway. Handy things to have around.

 

[Xand3r]

Hello,

I recently got a pair of angelfish and today I noticed that one of my angels has something similar to what you describe in this post

So I wanted to know if pimafix worked for you, or what did you do to cure your angel, did you figure out what caused the disease, or what's the name of the condition?

any help you can provide will be appreciated.

regards,

 

[epsolon77]

Hello,

I recently got a pair of angelfish and today I noticed that one of my angels has something similar to what you describe in this post

So I wanted to know if pimafix worked for you, or what did you do to cure your angel, did you figure out what caused the disease, or what's the name of the condition?

any help you can provide will be appreciated.

regards,

Unfortunately I believe that angel died. At this point in my Angelfish rearing I am beginning to think the best thing to do for sick fish is to go full antibiotic with one of the jungle labs products.