Help! Dying angelfish

Hello all, an angel I bought about 2 weeks ago has been acting strange. He has been hanging out in the same corner by the filter for a while and seems lethargic. Then I today he stopped eating and I noticed he is visibly skinny. He has been pooping a lot (and very slowly) as well. It seems to be a whitish clear color. My water is clean, ammonia and nitrate both at 0. Any advice would be much appreciated! I would be very disappointed if he died

 

Nitrate at 0? Nitrite or nitrate? A zero nitrate sounds like and incomplete cycle. The fishes behavior sounds to me like he had a parasite, but I don't know too much about that. Others will be able to help you.

 

Upon further research I do think it's a parasite however the only medicine I have is marine land all in one remedy and it dosent say it treats internal parasites. What medicine would you recommend I use?

 

Anything with praziquantel in it.

 

Metronidazole; that drug is absorbed into the body. Good for fish that won't eat due to internal parasites. There is Seachem Metroplex and/or API General Cure; Metro and Praziquantel. There is also PraziPro. Though I have never used them. I have used 100% powder forms individually for treatments.

 

Ok will do, thanks guys!

 

Welcome to the forum and I hope your angelfish gets better. Alison

 

You've got all 3 common symptoms for internal protizoans. Metronidazole, as was previously mentioned, will fix this right up.

Set up a med tank, you'll want to be able to get the temperature up to as close to 90F as possible. Med with 40mg/gallon of metro, with daily 50% water changes & remed. Don't feed until the 3rd day, starting on that day offer a bit of frozen brine shrimp sprinkled with a bit of metro, feed only this once daily for 7-10 days. The heat brings up their metabolism, increasing appetite, metro works best at warmer temps. Once they start even mouthing & spitting the food out you're on the road to recovery, as that starts getting the medication to where it needs to be.

Make sure you've got plenty of surface motion in the med tank, as warmer water holds less O2. If you've got access to a syringe & pipette force feeding a bit of medicated food gets things solved quickly, I'd go this route if the medicated water & such hasn't had any effect after 7 days.