kathiej

Lucky you. I'm the one who gets to deal with the sick dying and dead. Horses, cattle run over dog & cats and of course fish.... He just digs the holes with the digger and keeps the beer coming so I've got something to cry into....... :-?

Oh well thanks to everyone who offered suggestions. In the end I went with the last one and put him to bed in a bag of water on the freezer. It gave me a very bad night, so I took some 4.9% canned pain killers so I could get some sleep

Yep I think you're right. I guess I'll have to do that today.

My Black angel is still lying on its side with the occasional bursts of energy. This is week tree or four. Just read a book on diseases in fish that "Deep Angelfish" can get a herpes virus. "Affected fish show a loss of balance, spiralling behaviour and death" It is the closest symptoms I can find to what my angelfish is doing except it is still alive and doesn't seem to sprial so much as just fall over and lie there. So I don't even know if this is the problem, Any one know anything about the disease. Of course the book doesn't say if there is a treatment for it either.

How do I tell the males from the females??????? If I can get another tank how should I split them up? Males with males etc ?????????? I should have done more research to begin with and not relied on lfs for advise!!!!! For instance I was told neons were a good community fish... OK... but they didn't tell me that they were prone to being food for other fish. Had 30-have 3 now.!!!!!!!!

Angel is still going!!!! Nothing has changed. Missed out on the tank so he's still in a bucket but shows no signs of givng up! I change the water every day and add salt at half a tsp/ litr. I bought some Furan2 but don't know if I should dose him with it as I don't know what is wrong to begin with. What should I do next???????

Ok will do. I'll keep you posted. Hopefully getting tank tomorrow. He's in a bucket at the present

He doesn't appear to be eating, although he must of had something or I'd have thought he'd be dead by now, as he has been like this for over a week now.

Thanks, I'll put him in a bucket and try to get another tank asap. How long do I leave him in salted water, I don't want to pickle him! Should I keep changing the water or will that just stress him out more?

It is still the same. I have him in a plastic bag floating in the tank and change the water twice a day. It still just lies on its lh side. Doesn't appear to eat. I rang a lfs who said it could be parasites. Unfortunatly the lfs is an hours drive away and so I haven't mnaged to get there yet. With no work on the horizon I don't like my chances of being able to buy another tank anytime soon but I live in hope. He/she just got up and tried to swim for a short time. I hate seeing it like this. It could be something simple - or not.

Hi When I put food in the tank it stimulates it to try and swim around but the effort seems to wear it out and it lies on the bottom again. Wwould it be ok to keep it in a plastic bag in the aquarium if I change the water everyday and keep it aerated until I can get another tank? It appears to have damage but no open wounds or fungus. Should I get some kind of antibiotic or something to treat the water with when I get an isolation tank, if so what?

Hi I have 2 tanks. One is 2.5mtrs x .500 x.500 The other is about 1m x 500 x500. I have two Silver dollars 5 bristlenose and 3 angels in the small tank. The bigger tank has 6 angels, 3 pearl gouramis, 3 tiger barbs 10 golden barbs and a pleco about 30cm long. It was fine til they all grew up. Now I'm not in a financial postion to get another tank so I can't isolate the sick one. The other fish leave it alone but that is because it spends most of the time lying on the bottom. The rest are still doing battle. I'll try to get a tank and filter for an isolation tank.

When we started our tank we just bought fish and have had our fair share of dead fish thru ignorance. In the last year or so we haven't had many fish die although any dead fish is too many. At present I have Black Angel that is only just alive. It lies on the bottom of the tank for ages and then swims around for a bit, although it looks like it is doing it hard, then it sinks back to the bottom of the tank. This has been happening for several days. I keep thinking I should just give it the chop but it seems to be trying to live so I don't have the heart to kill it. I think I have too many angels in one tank now that they have grown up, as they are getting aggresive toward each other. The Blacks seem to be lowest in the pecking order. They all have their fins nipped but none of the others do. Any ideas what might be the problem with my Black Angel. He has damage to his fins but doesn't seem to have any fungal disease, and appart from fighting the others look fine.

On the whole the fish are living fairly peacefully but I have noticed the Angels starting to have a bit of head to head combat. I'm wondering if there is too many in the tank as I bought them as babies and they are now all about 3 -4 inches. There has been no damage yet but I don't want to lose any. The tank is 2.2.mtrs by .500x.500. It has a Fluval FX5 filter. There are 11 Angels. 4 pearl gouramies, 4 tiger Barbs, 10 little golden Barbs, about 30 neons, 1 sword tail,3 dwarf gouramis and a 15 cm Plecostamus.

I'm a real beginner (and have paid the price for a lack of knowledge.) I tried our district library database and foun about 5 books total on tropical fish. Most of these could have been read in the time it takes to have your morning constitutional!!!!! I have found out so much from this site just from reading others questions/ answers. A really good reference book with as much info and experience as can be found here would cost an arm and a leg if it was available. Like anything on the net though I pays to verify what you told. Luckily being new to fish keeping doesn't make a person entirely dumb about researching stuff. Love this site Glad I found it. Love good Books too - if you can get them.

Thanks everyone. The tank looks quite bare with just 2 hiding SDs. I will get a few more fish to put with them now.

OK but apart from lotsa plants what other fish will they live with?? I read somewhere that they are quite aggressive to other fish???????

I had Jewel Cichlids but got rid of them as they had started harrassing the SDs. So I have a 200ltr tank with 2 silver dollars and some baby bristlenose. I just read elsewhere on the forum that SDs strip plants pdq also. In my other tank I have just started replacing plastic plants with real ones but my angels (I think) are stripping one of them, which just happens to be the nice big one. Trying to find out what the plant is called. Do they eat the plants coz I aren't feeding them enough or are they like labradors and eat for the sake of it... or maybe they are just being perverse and destructive.

Sorry been bit busy horsing to get back here. The JC's didn't die. I started with four. two bred and killed one of the others. I tried to find something compatible to live with them. Got 2 silver dollars which grew quite big but were being hounded by the JCs when their brood hatched. I phoned fish shops all round but no-one wanted them (before I Found this site) so I put them on trade me and gave them away eventually as I didn't want to end up with a tankful of aggressive little monsters that might start interbreeding. Now I have the samw deal with the silver dollars. I'm told that they don't mix too well with other fish either!!!!!!!!

Gourami must have died. Its not there this morning but a bit if skeleton is left out side the rock bridge thing where the pleco hangs out. Gues thats why it didn't come out for brekky.

No fluffy stuff, not scratching. It hangs out at the top of the tank or at one end, that is the end that has the least water movement, and close to the glass also (like nose first for hours). I can put my hand in and move it around but it still swims on its own when it needs to. The white spots are like little holes and only at the base of a fin. Its breathing seems a bit more laboured than the other fish.

Thanks everyone. Have learnt heaps already. So much info, so little time and memory capacity.

mod = warren: Personal details removed - read the guidelines! (Doesn't matter if they're in the phone book - thats what the phone book is for!) Love to hear more about your new tank. Dimensions??

My cobalt blue dwarf gourami has been listless for a while but now doesn't seem to be feeding. It has a spot on one side near the base of its tail and I just noticed a couple of white spots and missing bits of fin. Is this terminal or can it be treated. I've had this fish for about 6 months. I've had several dwarf gouramis die over the last 8 months. I'm new to this and find it rather daunting when fish die for no apparent reason.

We were given a fairly big set up complete with some Jewel Cichlids. Lesson #1 Not all fish will live in peace with each other. (It's been a sharp learning curve!!) We no longer have the JCs L#2 LFS owners love newbies with visa. (U/G filters are no good you need a FluvalFX5 which we happen to have on special.... etc) I could go on but I guess everyone has similar stories. Lesson #3659 and learning still. Thank god for sites like this. Look forward to picking brains in the future. Cheers