Angelfish died quickly after being put in quarantine tank for treatment

I moved my tank last night into another room and to move the tank I had to take out about half the water in the 29 gallon tank.
Instead of just putting the water I took out back into the tank, I figured it would be a good time to do a water change of about 45%.
I changed the water and the fish were acting strangely for a couple hours later into the night (heavy breathing, angelfish staying at surface and one gourami lethargicly sitting at bottom corner.
I figured right away there was an oxygen issue and moved my air stone directly near the angel and gourami that looked distressed. I also tested the water and everything was fine with the ph being neutral (7.0-7.2) and ammonia being 0.25, nitrites 0ppm and nitrates 10-20ppm.

Another thing is I had an ich outbreak and was on about day 3 of dosing ich x which seemed to be helping (none of the fish had ich anymore when I woke up today). Everything seemed fine again and all the fish were acting normal except the angelfish who continued the heavy breathing throughout the day. Tonight, I added two 5ml doses of ich x to the water so that the ich wouldn't come back again. I most likely would not have done this if I had noticed the stressed and sick angelfish prior to adding it. After adding the ich x I noticed the angelfish had a swollen belly and didn't seem to be doing well. I noticed it when the angelfish was swimming abnormally with little control of itself and kept bumping into things in the tank.
Pretty soon the angelfish was sitting at the bottom not moving although it was upright thanks to a rock it was leaning against. It was clearly not well at all and it was still breathing heavy. At first I was thinking dropsy or some other bacterial infection, especially after reading online about it.
On forums like this one people were saying to set up a quarantine tank and add 1/8 teaspoon epsom salt for every 5 gallons. I did that and used tap water to fill up a ten gallon tank in which I dechlorinated with prime. I added a heater and let the water get to 82 degrees fahrenheit just like the 29g. I added the epsom salts (1/8 tablespoon per 5 g) and also put one packet of API general cure in there.
I moved the angelfish to the 10 gallon tank and right away it was apparent that it did not like something about the water in that tank. It seemed to be freaking out a little and kept sinking to the bottom and then quickly going to the top gasping for air. After about two minutes of this I knew I had to move him back to the 29 gallon and hope that this stress isn't going to kill him. I put him back in the 29 gallon and it made one last fin movement and died pretty quickly and sunk to the bottom with no gill movement for minutes.
I'm pretty positive the stress from being ill and also moved twice in a matter of two minutes and also whatever the heck was wrong with the water I put him in when I was trying to quarantine him is what killed the poor thing. The reason it was sinking to the bottom in the quarantine tank was because of the bloated belly and I expected that because he was sitting at the bottom in the 29 gallon but I wasn't expecting the panicky efforts to get to the surface for air because he wasn't doing that in the 29g.

Can someone give me their opinions on why the angelfish couldn't tolerate the quarantine tank I had set up for it and maybe if someone knows the cause of a bloated belly other than dropsy. I'm not 100% sure it was dropsy that the angelfish had because there were no issues with his external look and he appeared healthy from the outside other than the bloating. Usually with dropsy there's some skin lesions. Someone give me their input so I can find out what I did wrong. thanks

 

Your aquarium details aren't compete, but the thing that stands out, is .25 ppm of ammonia right after a 45% water change, must have been near .5 before hand. Seeing the presence of nitrates and 0 nitrite you must have had some sort of cycle though. How old is the tank, and how old is the media in your filter? What is your stocking and how big was the angel? If it's a hang on back, after you moved it the impeller/suction tube might have shifted, is it flowing right and not making any strange noises or excess bubbles? Did you change the scaping when you moved it? You did remember to dechlor the new 45% right? Did you have the fish out while you were carrying the half full 29 to it's new home? How long were your pumps off and water down during this move?

Assuming the best answers from those questions here's a thought about a possible "what happened"

When you refilled or carried the tank with fish in, did the fish maybe grab a piece of gravel or sand you knocked loose thinking it's food? I have had some fish bloat up after meals if the food clumped together and the bloat affected their bladder, they would swim head down trying to sink for a few hours and when they finally got the bladder to deflate hang out at the bottom for a while to rest/recover. Whenever I've moved a tank with substrate or plants I put the fish in tubs or buckets full of the tank water so they don't get beat up or try to eat things they shouldn't.

There may be a stocking issue in that tank if there are multiple gourami and Angels, I'm not the guy for those questions and answers, but I have noticed even with non aggressive fish, when I take a tank down 50% they get pretty nippy and could scuffle, causing allot of stress.

I can't even pretend to guess at the hospital salt bath as I haven't used a salt bath to treat yet, but I would love to see others reply to this thread in case they have some experience with it. Personally I would want to know about how it would affect a fish respective to osmoregulation if the fish was having a swim bladder problem due to boat and could not move well enough to get the right amount of what it wanted through it's gills. I have read great thing about the power of salt, but also allot of breed specific compatibility/dosage issues that have scared me away from it.

 

Your aquarium details aren't compete, but the thing that stands out, is .25 ppm of ammonia right after a 45% water change, must have been near .5 before hand. Seeing the presence of nitrates and 0 nitrite you must have had some sort of cycle though. How old is the tank, and how old is the media in your filter? What is your stocking and how big was the angel? If it's a hang on back, after you moved it the impeller/suction tube might have shifted, is it flowing right and not making any strange noises or excess bubbles? Did you change the scaping when you moved it? You did remember to dechlor the new 45% right? Did you have the fish out while you were carrying the half full 29 to it's new home? How long were your pumps off and water down during this move?

Assuming the best answers from those questions here's a thought about a possible "what happened"

When you refilled or carried the tank with fish in, did the fish maybe grab a piece of gravel or sand you knocked loose thinking it's food? I have had some fish bloat up after meals if the food clumped together and the bloat affected their bladder, they would swim head down trying to sink for a few hours and when they finally got the bladder to deflate hang out at the bottom for a while to rest/recover. Whenever I've moved a tank with substrate or plants I put the fish in tubs or buckets full of the tank water so they don't get beat up or try to eat things they shouldn't.

There may be a stocking issue in that tank if there are multiple gourami and Angels, I'm not the guy for those questions and answers, but I have noticed even with non aggressive fish, when I take a tank down 50% they get pretty nippy and could scuffle, causing allot of stress.

I can't even pretend to guess at the hospital salt bath as I haven't used a salt bath to treat yet, but I would love to see others reply to this thread in case they have some experience with it. Personally I would want to know about how it would affect a fish respective to osmoregulation if the fish was having a swim bladder problem due to boat and could not move well enough to get the right amount of what it wanted through it's gills. I have read great thing about the power of salt, but also allot of breed specific compatibility/dosage issues that have scared me away from it.

So to answer some of your questions, the ammonia was at around the same the morning before I moved the tank when I tested with a master test kit; 0.25. And thinking back I may have gotten mixed up between the test I did that morning and the test I did that night. After the water change i'm pretty certain it read 0ppm, but throughout the entire day the ammonia was 0.25 until the water change. The tank is pretty new actually, maybe about a month old. I used two bottles of fritz-zyme bacteria to cylce it and that stuff had been keeping my water parameters pretty good for about a week and a half. So I'm sure my tank was decently stable and the bacteria was established well. One thing I did add a couple hours before the move was a bag of Seachem Matrix. I didn't touch any of the other filter media and just added the Matrix. The stocking of my tank is 3 dwarf gouramis, one pleco, one angelfish (dead), and 2 red tail sharks (which shouldn't be together in the same tank but I am trying to return the less dominant one.) The angelfish was medium size, it wasn't small but it also wasn't fully grown. The hang on back filter was turned off before the move and was functioning fine after the move. The scaping stayed the exact same when I moved it because everything is well anchored in the substrate. I didn't need to dechlor the 45% because I went with purified drinking water and not tap water. The fish stayed in the water and when we moved the tank I had two people helping so it was a pretty smooth ride for the fish. They didn't look disturbed at all once we set the tank down. The only things that were off when we moved the tank was the filter and airstone, and they were both turned back on immediately when we set the tank down.

My fish always spit anything that they have mistaken for food, i've seen them do it dozens of times by now. I don't think the angelfish was bloated because it hadn't eaten in a day. When I took the water down to 50% they all seemed fine and just carried on with their business just with a low water level. Not sure it was a swim bladder issue because at times the angel could swim normally but it looked difficult with all the bloating he was enduring. He ended up sinking to the bottom once the bloating started to get worse. I hope that answers some of your questions and if you have a new idea of what happened after reading all my answers then please tell me.

 

Thank you for clarifying some of the details for us. Are your other fish doing better today than when you originally posted?

I am nowhere near experienced enough to troubleshoot this whole situation for you as I have no personal experience with those breeds. I would love to keep a shark or angel but I view my 29s as too small for either once grown and they are my largest solid bodies of water.

Do you usually use bottled water/the same brand/type for water changes? I have heard that they tend to be demineralized and the other numbers gH, kH, Ph don't hold well to average treated tap water. If it was significantly softer than your normal water it could render even Trace ammonia more lethal than usual, and possibly cause osmo shock.

Due to my lack of knowledge I'm going to ask Momgoose56 to come check this thread out. There are tons of knowledgeable keepers on this site and I know momgoose has a knack for troubleshooting, and has been around much longer than me so may know others that could jump in as well.

Did you happen to take any photos of the affected angel fish? Maybe some pictures of your set up could help as well.

 

I may have missed some things, but did you acclimate the angel to the water with epsom salts? Esalts will increase hardness (GH) and if a fish is shocked they will lose equilibrium almost immediately. Sounds like the problem was there before the Salts but I think unfortunately it was too much change at once for the angel. Sorry for your loss, it happens to all of us, you have to learn somehow.

 

Thank you for clarifying some of the details for us. Are your other fish doing better today than when you originally posted?

I am nowhere near experienced enough to troubleshoot this whole situation for you as I have no personal experience with those breeds. I would love to keep a shark or angel but I view my 29s as too small for either once grown and they are my largest solid bodies of water.

Do you usually use bottled water/the same brand/type for water changes? I have heard that they tend to be demineralized and the other numbers gH, kH, Ph don't hold well to average treated tap water. If it was significantly softer than your normal water it could render even Trace ammonia more lethal than usual, and possibly cause osmo shock.

Due to my lack of knowledge I'm going to ask Momgoose56 to come check this thread out. There are tons of knowledgeable keepers on this site and I know momgoose has a knack for troubleshooting, and has been around much longer than me so may know others that could jump in as well.

Did you happen to take any photos of the affected angel fish? Maybe some pictures of your set up could help as well.

Yeah the fish are doing good today other than some flashing from the red tailed sharks. Flashing is when they quickly rub against something if something is irritating their skin. I believe this is the ich trying to find a host after maybe one of the ich cysts in the gravel burst again but I have ich x doing its thing so if it works well I shouldn't see new spots on my fish. Yeah I use the same purified water from Whole Foods. The purified water I use isn't distilled so it isn't demineralized, i'm pretty certain its the best water that could be used for a water change. I didn't take any photos of the angelfish but it was an all black medium sized angel with a swollen belly or idk maybe abdomens a better word. I will try and add some photos of the tank soon.

I may have missed some things, but did you acclimate the angel to the water with epsom salts? Esalts will increase hardness (GH) and if a fish is shocked they will lose equilibrium almost immediately. Sounds like the problem was there before the Salts but I think unfortunately it was too much change at once for the angel. Sorry for your loss, it happens to all of us, you have to learn somehow.

I should have acclimated the angel to the water but I figured since the temperature was around the same it would be fine. I was wrong. Do you have any idea what was causing the bloated belly or abdomen with the info I gave? Dropsy or maybe something bacteria related? It wasn't food causing it because it hadn't eaten for a day prior to that.

 

I don't know really, of the fish I've lost that I've actually been able to diagnose, I've only lost one to dropsy, he had symptoms similar to you angel, but he was also patient 0 for a case of camalanus worms. I didn't have any levamisol or fenbendazol handy so I did a round of prazI and metro via general cure. During treatment is when the little guy went dropsy on me so I think it was a combination of triggers and not the common symptoms. He slowed down a little, I moved him to a breeder box, he swole up and pine coned from normal in about 15 minutes then feel over dead. He was the only fish I lost to camalanus, and happened to go dropsy. When the fish that were only mildly infected were passing worms during and after treatment it was still more common for them to look bloated, but only after a feeding. It was a different overall appearance. The dropsy was like bam! Whole fish swole. Feeding bloat even with mild internal worms, it was obviously just the stomach.

The only other issue I've had was NTD in rasboras and it's nothing like what you described.

I think I'm about out of disease assistance. Hopefully the conversation we had can inspire more experienced keepers to share on the subject.