Angelfish Issues

[SHARPiE]

Hi All -
I purchased a Lemonpeel (or Heraldis) Angelfish 2 weeks ago. He was QT'ed in my friends LFS for 1 month - eating fine.

I brought him home, drip acclimated and he was doing swimmingly (excuse the pun). Eating mysis and sprinula and grazing on my LR.

Left for work this morning and it was swimming normally, moving in and out of the LR tunnels and generally looking happy.

Arrive home today, and he's no-where to be seen. I then saw a mass of hermits crowding around in a deep section of LR - I moved around to the side and was devastated. They'd already started eating...

Pulled him out, and ran some tests (liquid of course):

NH3 - 0
NO2 - 0
NO3 - 20-40 (a little high so I'm about to do a PWC)
pH - 8.2
SG - 1.024 (refractometer)
Ca - 420
PO4 - 0 (running phoszorb)
dKH - 8

I'm clutching at straws here - Any ideas as to what caused this? These results don't tell me what could have happened.
He was full size 4".

All other tank mates are acting as per usual.

[StripesTheEel]

Sounds like the hermits were doing what they are there to do. Clean up a sick or dying fish.

2 weeks is not a long time to assume health of a fish. I would assume it was not very healthy to begin with.

I personally would also try to set up your own QT system, as I would not get a LFS to "quarantine" the fish for you.

[SHARPiE]

True - however I trust this LFS - my friend's dad owns the place. I've inspected their QT facilities out the back of the store - and its a brilliant set-up. I even went in and visited the fish while it was in QT.

[StripesTheEel]

How can you ensure that their water chemistry is the same as yours though?

4 weeks in general terms is not a sufficient quarantine period. Most would aim for 6 weeks as a minimum.

What LFS is this?

[SHARPiE]

If the water chemistry was different, I would have thought I'd notice signs of stress, during or just after I acclimated? (NB I acclimated for around an hour)

Next time I'll make sure my friend holds onto the stock for longer than 4 weeks - the two extra weeks and they may have been able to get a credit from their supplier.

The store is Marine Plus (salt only - they are branching out to fresh now too)

[StripesTheEel]

Do you know where the fish was caught or who supplies the store?

[SHARPiE]

Originally Posted by StripesTheEel

Do you know where the fish was caught or who supplies the store?

I'll have to ask - they are shipped down from up where you are. There's a large supplier near the reef.

I might start looking for aquacultured species.


Thanks for the help - and nice tank btw.

[cmor1701d]

A 4 week QT is standard, so no real problem there. If it were cyanide caught I would expect a problem around thew 2 week period. Drip acclimation (an hour) should allow for any differences between the store QT and the DT.
However, at 4" the fish is already an adult. You have no idea how old the fish was when captured. This fish is also more difficult to introduce into an aquarium and needs lots of estabished LR to graze on.

At this point I would chalk it up to MFD (mysterious fish death), something most of us have been through at least once.

[SHARPiE]

Thanks cmor - I was kinda hoping someone was going to call it a mystery, from what I could see - there wasn't an obvious explanation.
Just in case, I'll get them to QT for 6 weeks in future.

A bit dissapointed really - this guy was going to be my "centre piece". I've always liked dwarf angels. I don't want to rush back in and get another.

[StripesTheEel]

I like to use 6 weeks as it generally covers the Marine Ich lifespan, better safe than sorry IMO.

Going from your information though, everything was fine, so he fish might have just been sick with no visible signs or an old fella as mentioned above.