Angelfish keep dying!!! NEED HELP!

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Puckhog429

Puckhog429

Aquarium Advice FINatic
Joined
Apr 23, 2012
Messages
529
Location
Lancaster,Pennsylvania, U.S.A
So I recently bought a 29 gallon tank which i dirted and planted. What i planned on stocking was 2 angels 9 Harlequin rasboras around 5 Julli corys and khuli loaches. Right now i have every thing in the tank except the angels and its running fine. So i went out and bought 2 quarter size angels at my lfs and brought them home to a 10 gallon quarantine tank I had setup. I drip aclimated them and put them in the tank. In 3 days one of the angels died and the next day the other one died. I didnt notice any sign of infection or sickness on any of the fish. My lfs has a five day guarantee on their fish so i brought them back with a water sample and got 2 more. Now the second pair of angels are now dead after 4 days. I again tested my water and again the parameters were the same. This led me to think that it was possibly the ph or hardness of my water. I tested my ph and it is 8.1. I do not have a test kit for hardness but I do live in central pa and have a water softener running in my house. The water parameters in the qt tank are 0 ammonia, 0 nitrite, and 5 ppm nitrate. The ph again is 8.1.
What do you think is causing them to die? I buy all my fish at that pet place in lancaster pa and have never had any problems with the fish ive bought from them.
Sorry for the long post and thanks for reading!
 
Ok. I was trying to look for natural ways to lower ph and found that driftwood helps. I already have driftwood in the tank and even my dirted tanks have driftwood plus all the wood in the dirt and the ph is still around 8. Do you know of any other ways? I heard about using peat but not sure about it. Also i can bypass the water from the softener. Should i do this or keep using the softened water. Also does raising or lowering the hardness affect the ph?
Thanks for the reply :)
 
Sound as if whatever is going on is isolated to the quarantine tank, or just a bad batch of angelfish.
Clean/bleach the quarantine tank and reset it up using water directly from your main tank, then get some guppies or something cheap and expendable to try in the quarantine tank.
Also ask at lfs how long they had the angels prior to your purchase. If they get a new shipment in, check them out, but refrain from buying until they have been at the lfs and eating for at least a week-ten days if possible.

At times stores just get a "bad" shipment for whatever reason and they die.
I remember one morning coming into work and finding a tank of about 200 neons all belly up when they looked fine the night before. checked with our supplier, he lost a few thousand.
It happens and could also explain the death of the replacements if they were from the same shipment. You should definitely ask about it and always ask when they got the fish in so you have an idea of how well they are doing. Any fish that is a week or less in the store, I would very cautious of before plunking down the greenbacks. ;)
 
Ok thanks for the reply. I had talked to the guy and he said that my first batch had been there for 2 weeks and the second time i went he had said they had just got them in. I dont know how long he meant tho. Do i need to worry about the ph though? I read that fish can be acclimated to a higher ph and do just fine and they wont do good in too low of a ph.
 
And i have about 5 of my khuli loaches in the qt tank. Sorry forgot to say this. Thats partly what surprised me because in my experience the khulis are pretty sensitive to bad water.
 
Puckhog429 said:
And i have about 5 of my khuli loaches in the qt tank. Sorry forgot to say this. Thats partly what surprised me because in my experience the khulis are pretty sensitive to bad water.
Click to expand...

:confused:
:ermm:
:blink:

I'm stumped.

I would be concerned about the ph long term, like doubt they will spawn, stuff like that.
But if you are acclimating them properly........
what is the ph in the tanks at the store? did you ask?
 
8.0 ph will be okay for angels. More importantly, what is your ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate reading?
 
I posted the paramaters in 1st post. I did not ask what the ph was at the store but im going again tommorow and returning these ones. I will ask what the ph is there. For acclimating i put the bag and float it for about 20 mins for temperature then open it up and take some water out with turkey baster and put my tank water in. Btw i dont put bag water in the tank. I do this about 4 times spaced about 5 mins apart. Is this sufficient?
 
I've had mostly terrible luck with angelfish from the pet store. A lot of the fish that the wholesaler sends to the store just kinda crash and die.

Would it be possible for you to source some angelfish from a member of a fish club that is breeding them? I think you will be happier (and more successful) overall. Just a thought. :)
 
I guess they're just more common in Florida. I've been trying to get rid off one of mine but no one in my area is interested.
 
+1 on I think it was a poor shipment. Or your LFS houses their fish in poor conditions. Your acclimating should be all right for hardy fish such as angel fish. When I acclimated my angels I just placed their bag into my tank and once their temperature was right I just put them in. I only take careful measures when I'm dealing with sensitive fish.
 
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