Angelfish with dark sunken spots behind his eyes: Part II

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bigtard

Aquarium Advice Apprentice
Joined
Aug 18, 2005
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Location
Mesa, AZ
In the last few days one of my angelfish has developed dark, slightly sunken spots behind his eyes. The spots are about the same size as his eyes.

Any one know what the problem might be?

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Tank parameters: 79 degrees, 0ppm ammonia, 0ppm nitrite, 15ppm nitrate, 7.6 ph, 29 gallon tank.

The tank has been set up for about 4 months. I haven't added anything new to the tank for about 2 months.

The angelfish isn't acting unsual or anything like that. He seems to be eating normally.
 
Seeing the previous advice you recived I desided to do a little reaserch on your behaf..
This seems like it could very well the begining of a Myxosporean or Myxidium leei Parasite Infestation.. in the advanced stages the eyes are sunken and dark, you see a bony ridge around the eyes and the gut becomes bloated.. once the parisites have made it to this stage the likelyhood of saving the fish is slim.. there is nearly a 100% loss in aquaculture fasilities that become infected (of course being able to catch it early in these fasilities may be more difficult then it is at home)

http://www.ornamentalfish.org/common/acrobat/fvs/fvsjournalissue3.pdf
page 59-62 of this document has some rather heady information about it..

after the death of many fishs they do autopsys to determan the cause of death.. in wich case these seem to be in the gut.. that would make me want to treat this as an internal parasite infestation.. hopefully someone else can coment on how they would proceed.. but I would start a regiment of internal parisite foods as per instructions on the container..
anyone have a recomended anti-parisite food?
I do know jungle makes one and is likely the easiest to find...

I realize your peramiters are considered "fine" but.. in this case.. I would do some water changes to get the NO3 consentration to below 5ppm if it were my tank.. for the time being..

I hope this helps..
 
you may want to quarenteen your angel if you have a QT tank and you can use the jungle fizz tabs for internal parasites... i have used that before with success on a sick gourami.
 
yes.. the jounal of the fish vetinary society link I posted above did mention that this is contagious.. it would be wise to QT the fish infected if possible..
I should have mentioned that..
 
greenmaji said:
Seeing the previous advice you recived I desided to do a little reaserch on your behaf..
This seems like it could very well the begining of a Myxosporean or Myxidium leei Parasite Infestation.. in the advanced stages the eyes are sunken and dark,

In my fish's case, his eye looks normal, and the dark spot is behind and slightly above his eye. I have attached an illustration I cobbled together in Photoshop to show what the spot looks like. I don't know whether that changes your diagnosis or not.

Edit -- As for the nitrate levels, there's no good way for me to get those down much lower than 10ppm or so. My tap water has 5ppm to 10ppm when it comes out of the faucet.
 

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dark and sunken behind the eyes yes.. if you read the artical the entire area becomes dark once progressed.
I would treat for internal parisites..
 
bigtard said:
Edit -- As for the nitrate levels, there's no good way for me to get those down much lower than 10ppm or so. My tap water has 5ppm to 10ppm when it comes out of the faucet.

you might want to consider a good fast NO3 absorbing/low light plant to help with your NO3 levels..
 
Do you have any suggestions for a plant that would do well in a 29 gallon tank with a 20 watt (I think) light?

I bought a 10 gallon tank yesterday to quarantine the angelfish. I'm currently treating him with formalin and malachite green. Is there anything else I should use?
 
anacharis is exactly what I was thinking.. good show Ernie. :p

and I would start treating the fish for the internal parisites ASAP.. this can move very fast and is fatal..
 
I put him on malachite green and formalin for about a week. That didn't do anything. Then I put him on tetracyclene for about a week. That didn't seem to help.

The fish is still alive, but I think he's going blind now. His eyes look normal, but he's acting oddly. When I feed the other fish, it takes him a long time to figure out that there's food in the tank. When he gets to the top when I open the lid, he lunges at the surface like he's eating, but there's no food there. Often when I put food in the tank, he swims around as though he's looking for food, but he doesn't find it.

Anyone ever had a fairly young anglefish get bad eyes?
 
internal parisites..
you feed them food that is treated with anti-parisite medication.. its sold that way..
I hoped you would ask if you didnt understand... sorry about that..

fish can find food with there lateral line.. ie no eyes needed.. in other words your fish is very SICK..
Jungle makes a anti-parisite food..
it seems the easiest to find localy.. well has been for me anyway..
 
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