Here is a crappy low quality video of it: [url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mFLx-RgWNpg]Angel fish - swollen fin (unknown disease) - YouTube[/URL]
Thank you so much!Hey, Chesh asked me to take a look at your thread. Looks like are a couple possibilities for the swollen fin.
One is your angelfish could be developing lymphocystis, a usually nonfatal virus that causes cauliflower-like cysts on the fins and body. Depending on the severity, the cysts could be localized in one spot and stay on that fin or they could spread more. You can't treat this virus but it almost always clears up on its own after a few months. Only dangers are if the cysts are on the head and interfere with eating or if a cyst bursts and gets infected.
Second possibility is not so pleasant.It is glugea, an internal protozoan that initially manifests itself as white pimple-like cysts on the fins and body before going on to destroy the internal organs. There is no known treatment and the disease is fatal. Unfortunately, because the cysts look just like lympho cysts, there's no way to know which one your angelfish may have without an expensive veterinarian pathology test.
My best advice would be to keep the angelfish as isolated as possible and avoid any possibility of cross-contamination as glugea is definitely infectious and there may be several species-specific types out there; one of my sources speculates there is even an anabantoid-specific type.![]()
To ease some of the angelfish's distress, you could try adding API Stress Coat or Kordon Fish Protector to the water, or possibly trying an AQ salt dip to help promote slime coat growth.
I hope it's just lympho. Best of luck and keep us updated.
EDIT: I forgot to mention that it seems like glugea is fairly rare so chances are it's lympho.
Thanks Agent!! That makes me feel betteroh.. just looked at the video and now I know this is what I had with one of my angels!. For some reason I forgot we even went through that because it was so soon after getting him and so long ago. He didn't use that one fin for a while during the issue. It was most likely lymphocystis on mine. He had a full recovery and all I did was keep the water super clean...like over the top paranoid clean lol. It took a while..can't really recall how long but went way. I was very thankful to slow back on the rediculous water changes after that and probably mentally blocked it out because it was a lot of work to keep the water clean as I decided not to QT mine because My house was already full of 3 qt tanks with new cichlids n didn't want to start another. Long story short. My angel is fine and now much bigger and from what I can tell he is the peace keeping angel I have. Only after effects are..me obsessing over the water quality of that tank :lolBTW it was always perfect water quality..just for some reason the sickness made be obsess on that )