Angel fish with a bite mark or white spot?
Tom, Again, my sympathies on the loss of your Angelfish. They’re quite majestic in their own right and one can easily get attached to them when being involved in this hobby. Looking over your description of your hood, its still a mystery as to exactly how your fish incurred that wound, and it still looked like a wound to me beyond any other possibility. Wounds can be freak things with their occurance, just as accidents are with people.
Sometimes its hard to figure out just how they happened. Its possible, since you mentioned “HOB’s,” that in taking flight, the fish could have hit its back against the protrusion of the HOB filter return (if you have such a filter) that juts out. Those Whisper filters (and other similar ones), for instance, have that wide plastic waterfall-like return. whether an accident happened uder or above water, it always pays to have a night light for the fish’s room,, just to prevent this sort of thing.
As for treating Ich with only salt and higher temperature, I’d be most pleased to point you in the right direction for a site — how about Aquatic Life (Yahoo Group)!!! You only need to refer to the archives to see the many posts on it. All of us moderators here endorse and encourage the salt/heat treatment for Ich over any other method — except for cooler water fish, such as Goldfish which might be hard-pressed to take 86 o (LOL). You cannot treat Ich with Melafix, however (besides, that contains anti-biotic properties — and Ich is a protozoan parasite). I had assumed (and by chance, rightly so this time) it was Ich Clear Tank Buddies that you used, but for the benefit of others, its always best to point these little details out for clarity in efforts to help others help you.
Sorry to learn of your ear condition, its no wonder you don’t like anti-biotics. When used prudently, the proper ones for the specific fish diseases can be of immense help, though.
Getting back to your Angel for a moment, and for the time being dismissing the physical injury — assuming this fish died as a result of Hexamita (although I tend to doubt that, with noting a swollen belly), for the future I’d just like to suggest a few points of maintenance with this fish (species) to help ensure better success. One of the best things you can do for Angelfish is to continue with a regular routine of at least weekly, but whenever possible twice a week (or even every other day) PWC’s. They THRIVE on a constant change (but same parameters) of fresh water. Never allow the nitrates to build up. This tends to put a stress on them which may not appear outwardly in the general scheme of things in their daily lives, but will accumulate, slowly taxing their immune system and permitting these Flagellate (Hexamita) Protozoan — which is ever- present in many (most?) Angelfish as a controlled host — to gain in population from a mere foothold to a spreading pathogen, taking over and infesting the intestinal system.
There are specific behavioral mannerisms exhibited by such infested Angelfish, which I need not go into now, but if this is suspected in the future, please feel free to ask for assistance. While Hexamita in Angelfish can overtake some individuals faster than others, the severity of the disease is not yet established until the fish refuses food — and while sometimes acting faster, this disease cannot be fatal within 24 hours as your fish has experienced.
These more frequent PWC’s will also help maintain the immune system against other internal diseases, such as what might have happened to yours, but there is litte defense when sudden and freak varieties of diseases strike regardless of how well a fish is maintained. Then you have to add in that strains such as your’s (Black Angelfish) are inherantly weaker in their resolve and secumb more quickly when confronted with more-foreign diseases. Ray
Category: Philippines Internet Koi Society
