angelfish sick

bettababy

Joutiemike,
I was waiting for the new results she said she was going to get... I'm interested to see if there is a difference after using the liquid kits.
Also, girlofgod, as for the autopsy, thanks for the offer to send me one, but the body would need to be fresh for me to get any accurate information. Fish bodies decompose quickly, and even if frozen and shipped to me, it would thaw during shipping, leaving it unusable. If we were closer to each other, I'd surely offer to do the autopsy for you, as I think this could give us a lot of answers.
My last autopsy was on a cownose sting ray (saltwater) that died at the store here. Everyone had different ideas on cause of death, but it wasn't until we actually did the autopsy that we found the real answers.. it had bled to death. Being in such a large pool of water, there was no way to see this, as any signs of bleeding were washed away in the water. The ray had come in with a severe gill fluke problem, and after rubbing itself on the rocks so much, it had caused itself some severe lacerations which were difficult to see until we began the disection. My husband and I had done everything possible to save that ray. Another autopsy we had done on a customer's Koi was similar in results... they had died for unexplained reasons, and outwardly showed no signs of illness. Once inside, we could see the damage done to the internal organs by toxins someone had poured into her pond... after seeing the damage to the organs, we were then able to retest the water for specific toxins, and quickly found the problem. In both cases, the bodies were fresh, so it wasn't too difficult to get results.
In your case, I am suspecting the answers lie within the internal organs, but without a fresh or well preserved and almost fresh body, there is no way to tell that based on the symptoms you listed. Things such as lack of oxygen, damage to certain organs caused by water quality or other illnesses, internal parasites, etc, are all things we'd be looking for based on the symptoms you listed. And... without a trained eye and knowledge of the fishes internal parts, and effects on them, it's impossible to coach someone through an autopsy. Without the access to a microscope, some things are not visible to the naked eye.
I will still wait to see what the new test results show in your water quality. One other thing I'm curious about is the change in pH from the store's tank to yours. Your tank may have offered the proper environment, but if it was different than the conditions of the store tank, shock could still be an issue.
I would suggest keeping a close eye on the other fish, and let me know if you see any of the same symptoms showing up in the remaining angels. Some stores will keep angelfish at a higher pH level, as many breeders of standard angels work with pH levels up as high as 8.2
8.2 to 7.8 may not look like much to us in numbers, but to a fish, that is a big difference. Add to it the stress of moving... and many things could happen. Again, I am just giving possibilities, it's impossible for me to say for sure.

Ziek

most angels are actually kept closer to 7 if not a little under. 7.8 would be very high for an angelfish. they are often found with Discus in the wild in areas around 6.5. angelfish are able to live in higher ph than Discus but are still very sensitive to those higher ph levels. since the surviving ones are already in the higher ph if they have acclimated to it it would do more harm than good to change it but in the future when getting angelfish try getting the ph down to atleast 7.2 as well as hold off on medicating till you know what you are medicating.

joeshmoe

my lfs ph is 8.0 and there angels look fine are all alive

Lupin

It would be interesting if the test kits are also accurate or not. That pH would suit the Tanganyikans more than the South American cichlids. Scalare Angelfish have long been domestically-bred and will adapt to wide ranges of water parameters. But I still find them to thrive better in lower pH than high. On the side note, the words "thrive" and "survive" are different. When we say "thrive", fish tend to do well and are unproblematic under your care. To say "survive", this would mean a fish living in borrowed time rather than for long.

joeshmoe

they use api test witch i use too

girlofgod

my fish store also uses api and the ph was reading between 7.6 and 7.8...and i believe he said they keep their tanks there about 7.8...so ph shock between tanks wouldnt have been an issue i dont believe... but you never know. my new stats are as follows

ph-7.6-7.8
ammonia - 0
nitrate - 0
nitrite - 0

Lupin

Zero nitrates?
These following would be the factors.
1. Live plants-They can used up nitrates pretty fast.
2. No bacteria-That would be impossible and even then the ammonia could have spiked.
Can't figure out what other factors would be. Adding potassium nitrate may be your option. Low nitrates will often cause growth of BGA(blue-green algae).

girlofgod

oh...sorry..i didnt meant to post 0...i meant to post 10 nitrates..guess i left off the 1

Lupin

Oh ok.:) Thank goodness.

bettababy

Ziek, just a note for you... all of the standard angelfish found around here are bred and kept at pH of 8.0, and they thrive. I know one of the breeders that supplies our biggest LFS, and his pH is never under 7.8.
The altum angels that come in are always kept in softer water, but most of those are wild caught. The pH for those runs 6.8 - 7.2 and they thrive in that. The store has never had any big issues with angelfish in the past 10 yrs. I have kept angelfish (standard) at 8.0, have 1 now in my 180 amazon tank, with a pH of 8.0, and never a problem.