Batt4Christ
Aquarium Advice FINatic
- Joined
- Apr 18, 2011
- Messages
- 634
Well, wife called me into the front room a little while ago, somewhat upset. Her "special" angelfish "Princess" was dead as a doornail.
"She" was a solid white veil angel about 3 inches in size. This fish was special to my wife for a few reasons- one if which being that it made the trip from Dallas where we bought it, to home (6 hours).
I had notice I was kind of hanging out near the top of the tank behind the HOB discharge. She never shied any symptoms and I was starting to wonder of the larger angel was starting to establish a "pecking order" among the four angels.
Yes, I realize that a 29g is too small for 4 angelfish, but our intent was (and still is) to get a larger tank (saving up for a 125g), and felt confident that we ha plenty of time (especially with the heavy planting giving lots of hiding areas).
So- I netted the dead fish and took a close look- no signs of external trauma of any sort, not even nipped fins. No apparent gill damage, and other than "being dead", the fish looked perfectly healthy...
So, next step is to check water parameters (Monday is my normal maintenance day anyway):
Ammonia: 0ppm
NitrIte: 0ppm
NitrAte: between 10-20ppm (as others have commented before- kind of hard to tell- color after the timed 5 minute wait was right in-between).
Of particular interest- when the API instructions say to way 5 minutes to read the Ammonia test- they mean it! Right after adding the 2nd bottle, the color was straight yellow. After 2 minutes, I started to get concerned- I was seeing a bit of green tint, but at the 5-minute mark- straight "0ppm yellow".
So- with no signs of disease (and the fish was eating as of the last feeding yesterday). My only theory at this point is that I got stressed?
Dunno...
"She" was a solid white veil angel about 3 inches in size. This fish was special to my wife for a few reasons- one if which being that it made the trip from Dallas where we bought it, to home (6 hours).
I had notice I was kind of hanging out near the top of the tank behind the HOB discharge. She never shied any symptoms and I was starting to wonder of the larger angel was starting to establish a "pecking order" among the four angels.
Yes, I realize that a 29g is too small for 4 angelfish, but our intent was (and still is) to get a larger tank (saving up for a 125g), and felt confident that we ha plenty of time (especially with the heavy planting giving lots of hiding areas).
So- I netted the dead fish and took a close look- no signs of external trauma of any sort, not even nipped fins. No apparent gill damage, and other than "being dead", the fish looked perfectly healthy...
So, next step is to check water parameters (Monday is my normal maintenance day anyway):
Ammonia: 0ppm
NitrIte: 0ppm
NitrAte: between 10-20ppm (as others have commented before- kind of hard to tell- color after the timed 5 minute wait was right in-between).
Of particular interest- when the API instructions say to way 5 minutes to read the Ammonia test- they mean it! Right after adding the 2nd bottle, the color was straight yellow. After 2 minutes, I started to get concerned- I was seeing a bit of green tint, but at the 5-minute mark- straight "0ppm yellow".
So- with no signs of disease (and the fish was eating as of the last feeding yesterday). My only theory at this point is that I got stressed?
Dunno...