Help! angelfish not eating

I have an angelfish in a 37g with other fish and he hasn’t been eating tdy but he looks normal.
Does anyone know what he has or what to do?

temp:
78-79
Ammonia and nitrite: 0
Nitrate: 10

 

Feed him a deshelled pea, he might be constipated. Also, pay attention to his poop. If it is white and stringy, treat him for intestinal parasites. API general cure is my go to, but you could use other medications such as praziquantel.

 

He's fat and healthy looking, eyes clear fins are good. Probably just wasn't hungry today. Sometimes they don't eat, from just not feeling it, but its only been a day. When he gets hungry he'll eat something again usually.

What do you feed, how, and how often?

There could be constipation or a parasite issue depending on how you are feeding normally, but I wouldn't jump immediately there because his condition is good. That might indicate a reason for constipation in there.

Have you added new fish recently? A parasite could be possible if you've added some new fish. But not if nothing has changed for a long time.

They are intelligent though as far as fish go, they do need mental stimulation from time to time or they will get bored which might be part of this, not very active and full, and bored with not much to do so doesn't really feel a need to eat.
I use a laser pointer a couple times a week on my tank, my angels go nuts for 5-10 minutes trying to chase the red dot down and get to it first. But it gives them something to get excited over and think about, to compete over, without them getting restless and messing with each other to keep it interesting.

My breeding pair literally eats one or two flakes each every day, the rest they get from pecking at algae and stuff, cleaning breeding spots.You'd think they were starving because they barely eat the food they are given for the last 5 months, but they don't lose weight and they do eat heavy for like 2 days between spawns when they aren't doing anything else.

 

He's fat and healthy looking, eyes clear fins are good. Probably just wasn't hungry today. Sometimes they don't eat, from just not feeling it, but its only been a day. When he gets hungry he'll eat something again usually.

What do you feed, how, and how often?

There could be constipation or a parasite issue depending on how you are feeding normally, but I wouldn't jump immediately there because his condition is good. That might indicate a reason for constipation in there.

Have you added new fish recently? A parasite could be possible if you've added some new fish. But not if nothing has changed for a long time.

They are intelligent though as far as fish go, they do need mental stimulation from time to time or they will get bored which might be part of this, not very active and full, and bored with not much to do so doesn't really feel a need to eat.
I use a laser pointer a couple times a week on my tank, my angels go nuts for 5-10 minutes trying to chase the red dot down and get to it first. But it gives them something to get excited over and think about, to compete over, without them getting restless and messing with each other to keep it interesting.

My breeding pair literally eats one or two flakes each every day, the rest they get from pecking at algae and stuff, cleaning breeding spots.You'd think they were starving because they barely eat the food they are given for the last 5 months, but they don't lose weight and they do eat heavy for like 2 days between spawns when they aren't doing anything else.

I try to feed him specifically 2-3 times a day since he is a juvenile. I feed him frozen bloodworms 2 times a week and typically give him the tetra fish flake brand. I did try to feed him daphnia (dried) but he doesn’t seem to like it.
He is very slow at eating so I have been feeding him the flakes with tweezers and he usually goes for it but not tdy!

I also have gotten new fish around a couple weeks ago bc I set this tank up around september 20th of this year.
-So I guess you can the angelfish is still pretty new to this tank (got him september 23)

 

I think it's OK.
What I do that seems to work real well. Feeding 4x a day, about what the tanks fish can clear out in 30 seconds. This works out to a 2-3 minute feeding in 24 hours. But it gives slow eaters opportunity at food and nobody is "full" which is bad in the long run for digestive issues. You can feed every 6 hours or 3x8 hours and one additional after 2 hours, main thing is to give 2 hours to digest the previous small feeding. There is a point where the gain isn't there, like 6-12 small feedings in 24 hours. It just creates more poop without body mass gain. And with a growing fish, body mass gain = growth. Not so with an adult. You'd slow feedings nearing max size or you'll wind up with a fat fish.

What I do, I just do tetra flakes and use a multivitamin supplement which I've found really helps bring out the orange color. My angels are gold marbles, they are supposed to have a yellow to orange to their head to the dorsal, and while I don't endorse anything, I've found Boyd's Enterprises Vita-chem, has really helped color my angels compared to without it, not sure if it's helped growth with the way I feed. Depends you have, yours looks like a white marble. In which case the gold/yellow color won't develop. Theres no yellow to the white areas. There's no difficult color to enhance.

If its a parasite he'll get sunken in and thin. I think its too early to determine its a parasite. If it's constipation it will pass most likely.
Keep an eye on the fish for poop. Angels poop short strings to pellets, Less than an inch. If it's not brown/red and under an inch it's fine. If its long white and stringy, it could be parasite or a digestion issue.

I dont feed anything besides the flakes and use the vitamin supplement. I dont like variables, or live/frozen foods. It's kind of unnecessary and opens the door to outside new influences that are negative like a parasite for instance.
.

 

I would be a bit concern; also i would stop feeding him bloodworms. If you have them available one of the best foods you can feed them are fluval bug bites. Also they need a bit of plant matter in their diet - you could try nls algae max or soilent green as well as spirulina 20 . They won't eat a lot but a bit is helpful. Flakes are frequently a mix of plant/meat but I'd go for omega-one cichild flakes. I generally don't like flakes simply because it can make a bit of a mess in the tank; but i do feed them a little mostly for the tetras which find foods like bug bites a bit difficult.

I find it a bit strange that as a juvi he is a slow eater. I've seen this more in adults who will skip meals; but all my juvi angels pretty grab anything they can fit in their mouths when i feed them - and it doesn't really matter if i feed them once a day or 10 times a day they are always eager to eat (I'm currently growing out a group of 13 - and even the two runts i sep out from the rest of the group are eager eaters).

If you want to feed live food i'd go for brine shrimp which is much healthier than bloodworm and for the most part safe of diseases that bloodworm can carry.

 

I would be a bit concern; also i would stop feeding him bloodworms. If you have them available one of the best foods you can feed them are fluval bug bites. Also they need a bit of plant matter in their diet - you could try nls algae max or soilent green as well as spirulina 20 . They won't eat a lot but a bit is helpful. Flakes are frequently a mix of plant/meat but I'd go for omega-one cichild flakes. I generally don't like flakes simply because it can make a bit of a mess in the tank; but i do feed them a little mostly for the tetras which find foods like bug bites a bit difficult.

I find it a bit strange that as a juvi he is a slow eater. I've seen this more in adults who will skip meals; but all my juvi angels pretty grab anything they can fit in their mouths when i feed them - and it doesn't really matter if i feed them once a day or 10 times a day they are always eager to eat (I'm currently growing out a group of 13 - and even the two runts i sep out from the rest of the group are eager eaters).

If you want to feed live food i'd go for brine shrimp which is much healthier than bloodworm and for the most part safe of diseases that bloodworm can carry.

I think it's OK.
What I do that seems to work real well. Feeding 4x a day, about what the tanks fish can clear out in 30 seconds. This works out to a 2-3 minute feeding in 24 hours. But it gives slow eaters opportunity at food and nobody is "full" which is bad in the long run for digestive issues. You can feed every 6 hours or 3x8 hours and one additional after 2 hours, main thing is to give 2 hours to digest the previous small feeding. There is a point where the gain isn't there, like 6-12 small feedings in 24 hours. It just creates more poop without body mass gain. And with a growing fish, body mass gain = growth. Not so with an adult. You'd slow feedings nearing max size or you'll wind up with a fat fish.

What I do, I just do tetra flakes and use a multivitamin supplement which I've found really helps bring out the orange color. My angels are gold marbles, they are supposed to have a yellow to orange to their head to the dorsal, and while I don't endorse anything, I've found Boyd's Enterprises Vita-chem, has really helped color my angels compared to without it, not sure if it's helped growth with the way I feed. Depends you have, yours looks like a white marble. In which case the gold/yellow color won't develop. Theres no yellow to the white areas. There's no difficult color to enhance.

If its a parasite he'll get sunken in and thin. I think its too early to determine its a parasite. If it's constipation it will pass most likely.
Keep an eye on the fish for poop. Angels poop short strings to pellets, Less than an inch. If it's not brown/red and under an inch it's fine. If its long white and stringy, it could be parasite or a digestion issue.

I dont feed anything besides the flakes and use the vitamin supplement. I dont like variables, or live/frozen foods. It's kind of unnecessary and opens the door to outside new influences that are negative like a parasite for instance.
.

Update: he’s got white stringy poop and still not eating

i did a water change yesterday and paid close attention to him today. He’s acting fine and interacting with his environment.

But he has something small under his stomach where he typically poops. I circled it in one of the photos that I just took. He had it since yesterday.

this leads me to think that he has internal parasites?

should I dose paracleanse?

 

If you've seen that he has white stringy poop, that is a sure sign of internal parasites. If you have a hospital tank, move it there and treat. If you don't, then treat the whole tank with general cure, it won't hurt the fish. Also is you have carbon in either your hospital or main tank, remove it temporarily as it nullifies the effect of the medicine. Learned from experience with my pygmy cories, and they're all gone now.

 

If you've seen that he has white stringy poop, that is a sure sign of internal parasites. If you have a hospital tank, move it there and treat. If you don't, then treat the whole tank with general cure, it won't hurt the fish. Also is you have carbon in either your hospital or main tank, remove it temporarily as it nullifies the effect of the medicine. Learned from experience with my pygmy cories, and they're all gone now.

Don’t have general cure but paracleanse which I think will work. Also I don’t have any carbon in the tank!
Just dosed today and will update in a week. Hopefully he will be fine soon.

 

The spot you circled is his breeding tube I believe.

 

Don’t have general cure but paracleanse which I think will work. Also I don’t have any carbon in the tank!
Just dosed today and will update in a week. Hopefully he will be fine soon.

Day 2: still not eating

 

Day 2: still not eating

Paracleanse should accomplish the same thing. both products have praziquantel/metronidazole.
The only thing I'd suggest that isn't in the directions, is if it's a powder, you might want to put the powder in a container with some tank water and shake it real good for it all to dissolve into that water and then dose it. I think the praziquantel isn't so water soluble and takes a lot to really get it mixed in and working.

Stay the course, and follow the dosing directions.

there's one more med for parasites that works when these two don't, it's levamisol, you'd look for a product containing that, Fritz Expel-P comes to mind there's likely others. there's also the pure levamisol HCL that's sold at some aquatic supplies and pond places.

The fish seems to be in good condition physically still, it can go a while without eating 1 week, 10 days, 2 weeks probably, maybe more.

 

Paracleanse should accomplish the same thing. both products have praziquantel/metronidazole.
The only thing I'd suggest that isn't in the directions, is if it's a powder, you might want to put the powder in a container with some tank water and shake it real good for it all to dissolve into that water and then dose it. I think the praziquantel isn't so water soluble and takes a lot to really get it mixed in and working.

Stay the course, and follow the dosing directions.

there's one more med for parasites that works when these two don't, it's levamisol, you'd look for a product containing that, Fritz Expel-P comes to mind there's likely others. there's also the pure levamisol HCL that's sold at some aquatic supplies and pond places.

The fish seems to be in good condition physically still, it can go a while without eating 1 week, 10 days, 2 weeks probably, maybe more.

Saw his poop for a second time and wanted to check with u guys that it looks like parasites even though I’m treating for it

 

take the poop out into a still cup of water. If it moves, then its definetly a parasite. Still treat the fish.

 

day 3: still not eating

He once in a while acts like he’s coughing.put something and has done that for the past couple of days.

 

It's now definitely ip now. Keep dosing and I wish you the best of luck.

 

Day 4: still not eating
Keeps acting once in a while like he’s spitting out stuff
-still active thou

just for further planning as treatment is coming to an end. what should I do next if he doesn’t feel better.

 

if the paracleanse doesn't work, I'd move on to the expel-P with the levamisol. The levamisol is a really effective treatment for certain types of intestinal parasites that the general ones (prazi/metro combinations) don't work well on. levamisol is supposed to paralyze the parasite, interrupting its' nervous system so they can't move breed or eat and they eventually die. Last I saw it was like 95% effective on the harder internal parasites that the generals don't work so well on.

but first things first. you need to see if this worked. you'd do small feedings a few times a day, 3-4- even 6 times if you can, just not less than 2 hours apart between feedings and small, , trying to get him to poop more to poop out dead parasites hopefully.

I know he's not eating now, but if he starts feeling better he will. I do not recommend going right to another round of treatment, this should have worked if directions were followed and it's the right parasite for the medication, even if it's the wrong parasite, it should kill some of them. You should give it two weeks after this treatment, it should do something. he should eat, and you'd want to give him time to poop and gain some weight and recover from this before trying something else if it doesn't eradicate the parasite totally.

it's kind of a wait and see after this treatment, he needs to start eating something and pooping to get rid of the dead IPs, but you really don't want to run from one treatment directly into another without a break, because sometimes the effects of the treatment come after the first round has finished and it's in his system completely and regardless, it's best if he eats to recover his strength and weight before trying a 2nd round of treatment to be totally sure it's gone or if you notice it's still not quite right.

I wish you luck.

 

if the paracleanse doesn't work, I'd move on to the expel-P with the levamisol. The levamisol is a really effective treatment for certain types of intestinal parasites that the general ones (prazi/metro combinations) don't work well on. levamisol is supposed to paralyze the parasite, interrupting its' nervous system so they can't move breed or eat and they eventually die. Last I saw it was like 95% effective on the harder internal parasites that the generals don't work so well on.

but first things first. you need to see if this worked. you'd do small feedings a few times a day, 3-4- even 6 times if you can, just not less than 2 hours apart between feedings and small, , trying to get him to poop more to poop out dead parasites hopefully.

I know he's not eating now, but if he starts feeling better he will. I do not recommend going right to another round of treatment, this should have worked if directions were followed and it's the right parasite for the medication, even if it's the wrong parasite, it should kill some of them. You should give it two weeks after this treatment, it should do something. he should eat, and you'd want to give him time to poop and gain some weight and recover from this before trying something else if it doesn't eradicate the parasite totally.

it's kind of a wait and see after this treatment, he needs to start eating something and pooping to get rid of the dead IPs, but you really don't want to run from one treatment directly into another without a break, because sometimes the effects of the treatment come after the first round has finished and it's in his system completely and regardless, it's best if he eats to recover his strength and weight before trying a 2nd round of treatment to be totally sure it's gone or if you notice it's still not quite right.

I wish you luck.

Thanks for all the info.
I will wait for 2 weeks after this treatment to treat with expel P.
As I said, I will be keep on updating for anyone who is dealing with something similar.

just one more question, should I do frequent water changes like 2-3 times a week before I start the next treatment?

 

Thanks for all the info.
I will wait for 2 weeks after this treatment to treat with expel P.
As I said, I will be keep on updating for anyone who is dealing with something similar.

just one more question, should I do frequent water changes like 2-3 times a week before I start the next treatment?

And what should I do if he doesn’t start eating within the next two weeks before next treatment….I don’t want him to starve to death.

 

Update day 8: still relatively not eating

I had my angelfish in my main tank for the first treatment with para cleanse. After a couple of days after treatment, I waited a couple of days and listened to people saying that I should wait 2 weeks before starting new treatments. However, I couldn't wait that long; it was a matter of life and death for him since he had not been eating for a week (as a juvenile). I bought PraziPro and placed him in a 10-gallon quarantine tank full of tannins. I dosed PraziPro yesterday and am now starting an aggressive treatment.

He is still not eating any flakes. But that being said, I placed a whole bunch of bloodworms, hoping that he would try to eat one and he did! Just a singular bloodworm thou and he tried to spit it back up (he failed to).
So after 8-9 days without eating, he ate a single bloodworm. I know that it is unlikely that he will eat tomorrow but will try again and update.

Behavior:
- a little lethargic
-saw him do some flicking/ twitching on his fins.
-not eating
-trying to spit something out...I dont know what to call this.