FishyWishy1500

Hello everybody.
I have no idea what is wrong with this fish! Yesterday I was out buying more fish and when I got back I noticed that my angel fish looked weird, it's mouth was all white and it looked kind of like a fish had chewed on the mouth, or some bacterial disease or something.

Then I put in the new fish and today I looked at the angel again and it's mouth is not very white anymore, but it is all out (I've seen them open their mouth like there yawning or something, but they have always put it back to normal.) but this ones mouth is just staying all opened out.

These are the fish that I had when the angel fish first started having this problem yesterday:
3 Angel Fish, 2 Catfish, About 7 or 8 zebra danios, (I had three of the red glo-lights but I found the angelfish eating one of them and the other one is missing, so I only have one of those now.) 1 serpae tetra, 1 blackskirt tetra, 5 red eyed tetras, (one of them is swimming upside down and on its side and sometimes just lies on the bottom, but it still eats.)

And lastnight here are the fish we added:
4 more blackskirts (hi-fins). 5 giant danios, and one female crab.

It's a 65 gallon tank. And you can see the water parameters and all that by looking at my profile.

I'm going to try to put pics. And you can see for yourself what I mean. If anyone has any idea what this is PLEASE help fast before it takes over in my tank and before this angel fish dies!

Attached Images

	Angel.JPG (96.0 KB, 4 views)
	angel bigger mouth.JPG (54.4 KB, 6 views)
	angel close up.JPG (75.9 KB, 4 views)
	side view angel.JPG (100.2 KB, 4 views)
	angel whole body.JPG (102.8 KB, 3 views)

Shawnie

I think a 25% water change is due..you shouldnt have ANY amonia...not that im saying thats the angels issue, but maybe the other fish whose doing upside down stuff..either way the amonia will kill them...im thinking you are overstocked for your 65 gal but im a newbie and someone will respond soon im sure..in the meantime, a water change certainly wont hurt while you wait...

FishyWishy1500

I did a water change today and after that was when I checked the ammonia and the ph. I don't think I'm overstocked at all, I don't have very many fish and I've gotten every one at the advice of an experienced fish keeper. I'm planning to do another water change maybe tomorrow. Would that be good?

MissMTS

Hi!
I am not sure what is wrong with your angel and I am sorry to hear that he is not doing well I can however give you some other suggestions for your tank that will help the overall health of your fish. Your tank is overstocked. You should have no more than 65 inches of fish in your tank (one inch per gallon). You need to take the adult size of the fish into account when you calculate this. Don't go by the size of the fish when you buy it. What kind of catfish do you have? That info would be helpful. Your serpae tetra needs to be in a school of 6 or more. Otherwise it will nip fins and harass the other fish in the tank. Your other glolight tetra should be in a school of 6 or more as well. Because your tank is WAY overstocked as it is, I would take those two guys back to the fishstore. While you are there, you really should buy a testkit (API Master Testkit is best). Once you get your results, it will help us determine further what is wrong with your fish. Good luck with everything and please keep us posted.

MissMTS

I thought of 3 more things after looking at your aquarium info:

1. You should be doing daily water changes until the ammonia levels drop to zero or your fish will die from ammonia poisoning.

2. What is the temperature of your tank?

3. Why did you add pH down? The fish in your tank will be fine at a 7.2 pH. Usually the pH modifiers strip the water of its buffers and make the pH very hard to regulate.

FishyWishy1500

I did take that into account, I only have small fish, (besides the two angel fish which are about 4 or 5"s tall).

I have two synodontis eupterus catfish, one of them is about 4 or 5 inchs long.

I have had my serpae tetra by himself for about two years now and it is not agressive a bit, it just swims around near the blackskirt tetras and dosen't bother any of the fish.

I had my glolight tetra in a school of 3 and I had about 14 regular zebra danios and they all school together.

My angel fish died yesterday so I threw it out, I hope it's disease or whatever didn't spread to the others with it.

Thanks for trying to help, but I guess it was to late.

FishyWishy1500

How do you do daily water changes? How many hours between?

My tank is at a steady 80 degrees.

I added ph down because I read what is good for angelfish and that was just a little higher.

Thanks for the help.

SereneReyn

just every day about the same time, do a water change. your tank is still heavily overstocked, and if you decide to keep it that way, daily waterchanges should continue indefinitely. but i would throw my advice in with the others - pare down the number of fish you have, or get another tank for some of them. the 'experienced fish keeper' you made reference to might benefit from coming here as well, btw.

unless your Ph is just ridiculously off the charts, i would never mess with it. ever. the MOST i would do to alter Ph, would be to add some driftwood.

sorry you lost your angel.

betta-cat

Wierd!! Good pics but I have no idea what happened there.

Just out of curiousity, is it possible that the angel fish sucked up a piece of gravel? I had to 'operate' on a goldfish once that had a chunk of gravel stuck in its mouth. He wasn't too happy about the procedure but was much happier afterwards. In his case though, I could see the chunk caught so I laid him down, covered him with wet cotton batten and then poked at the chunk with a set of fine tweezers and straight pins. Tricky but it worked.

I overstock my tanks as well but I keep a real close eye on the water parametres and keep good water circulation. I'm at the weekly testing stage and have had no problems at all after the initial setups. I have algae growing in the tanks, as well as hornwort and have now added other live plants. I still do weekly water changes. I think the inch per gallon is a good guideline but for years now, I've gotten away with overstocking as long as I keep a close watch on parametres and keep up with water changes. All of my fish are small though, a tank of guppies, a tank of platies, a tank of neons, plus cory cats in each tank. My goldfish downstairs are hopelessly overstocked but I lost only one earlier this winter. I think one of my cats had a little something to do about it. Again, weekly water changes and lots of good circulation. They are outside during the summer and go on 'holidays' in the winter.

The only diseases I've had were brought in with new fish. I learned to never, never add fish to my established tanks without quarantining them first. My latest two platies were put in the quarantine tank last Wednesday. A day or so after I got them, I noticed one had fin rot. She's recovering and will stay another week out with her buddy before I put them both into the platy tank. Even a 5 gal tank is worth setting up and kept running until needed as a sick tank.

susitna-flower

The mystery disease this angel fish had was probably "cotton mouth"... not every fish that gets that won't hold its mouth in such an exaggerated fashion, but Angels might. It is like any sore, it will make an animal (fish too) favor the injury....they won't eat normally and as you found out can be fatal.

Today was the first time I saw this post, or could have suggested treatment. First I would quarantine the fish, then use some medication like Maracyn-Plus, which is listed for treatment of "mouth fungus"....

Any fish in an overstocked aquarium is likely to succumb to bacterial, fungal, or parasitic infections. You should deal with that situation before you lose more fish. Good Luck.

FishyWishy1500

I doubt that sucking a piece of gravel up would make its mouth turn white and look as though it where being eaten away at. And the next day (the day I took the pics) it's mouth would be all stuck out straight, it couldn't even close it for the whole day, then it looked like it was getting better because it was opening and closing it's mouth almost all the way. But it still couldn't keep it closed.

My guess is that it was most likely some kind of disease.
I wish you guys where on here when I was having the problem, the only people who answered me where a couple people who didn't have a clue what it was.

Thanks for the information. Yesterday I did a water change with about half the water and all of my fish seem to be doing fine right now. Again, I don't think my tank is overstocked at all. It still looks kind of bare. I will try to post a pic of it so you all can see for your selfs.

Thanks again.

FishyWishy1500

Thanks for posting. I searched all around on google and I came up with the same posibility. But since I wasn't positive that that's what it was I didn't want to treat it and then have it die anyways. (I don't have the medication anyways so I would have to buy it, and I wasn't even sure what I would need.)
I didn't have any other tank set up to quarantine it either. All I have is the 65 set up. What is the best size quarantine tank I should have and what should it have in it?

Thanks again everyone!

COBettaCouple

The tank is pretty overstocked. Smaller fish need a gallon of water per ADULT inch and moderate sized fish like Angels need a good bit more. It's an issue of waste production and enough room for the fish to get the needed amount of swimming space.

With the fish you have, a 20g would probably be the size tank that you'd want for a q/h tank.

FishyWishy1500

Here is what my tank looked like before when I had the angel. Now I did a 50 % water change and took out some of the decorations and plants, and it looks better now.

Attached Images

my fish tank before.JPG (72.5 KB, 12 views)

Tayful

Sorry to hear about your angel, but I agree with everyone else. You're way overstocked. Try to get a second tank or get rid of some of your fish if you can, because they won't live healthily or happily for too long like that. Good luck!

grneyez808

Hello,
Im sorry to hear of your loss, I too lost an angel and it was difficult for me. When I was going through trying to figure out what was wrong I went to my library and read as much as I could. I now know about 300% more today then I did then. As far as the angels mouth. It sounded like mouth fungus cotton mouth. I suggest you get a test kit for your water. I use API master kit and it is great. It will run you about $35 but it is well worth it. Yes you are overstocked and Please remember that you shouldnt add so many fish at once and wait a few weeks adding them gradually about two at a time. This helps to insure that your bio filter "flora" will be able to adjust to the changes caused by the new fish's excretions. etc. You want your levels to be at 0ppm for ammonia and nitrites. I bet that your nitrites are even higher. Good luck and I hope things do well in your tank....

grneyez808

Is your red eye still swimming upside down? " swim bladder infection "

FishyWishy1500

No it died a few days after my angel. But at least now I will know if it ever happens again.

Thanks for all your responses everyone.