bloatged angelfish dieing

[giorid]

Hi folks,
Please help, my baby 3 months sv angels are getting bloated and dieing, I feed them sera discus granules and nutrafin discus granules straight from the tin, I don't soak them, should I? + blood worms once a week, ph 5.5 trying to lower it to 4 to kill any bacteria in case it's dropsy. I did a water change on sunday with filtered rain water, I wormed them about a week ago, and added some cupramine + salt 200mg/100L as a preventative against white spot, any help really appreciated, don't want to lose any more, no jokes please, I'm too sad, cheers max. :(

[Merrilyn]

Sorry to hear that Max. It's really distressing when your precious babies die for no apparent reason.

Okay, lets look at some of your tank parameters.

I know you're dropping the pH, but just hold off on that for a while. A pH of 4 is way too low for angels.

How often are you doing water changes, and how often are you feeding. Water pollution is the greatest danger with juveniles. Feeding them often causes a huge amount of waste, and waste produces polluted water. As you know, polluted water is a killer.

Test the ammonia, nitRITE and niTRATE and post your results (before doing any waterchange). Then I'd like you to start doing some huge waterchanges. Around 50% of the tank water at least once a day, twice a day if you can manage. I know that's going to play havoc with your pH but so long as you adjust your pH in the tub or bucket before adding to the tank, you should be right.

Keep us posted. Pictures are a great diagnostic tool if you can manage some.

Just a note on diet, I'd stop feeding bloodworms to juvenile fish. They have a hard exoskeleton which is not digested, and can block the gut. Angels are greedy feeders, and amy be pigging out on the bloodworms, even tho you are only feeding them once a week. That weekly meal could be enough to cause problems. Adults are fine with bloodworms, just seems to cause problems with the immature gut of juveniles.

[giorid]

thanks merrilyn,
I keep them in a bb 4ft tank, do water changes of 50% once a week, use five in one api test strips to check for nitrate, nitrite, ph, gh, and kh,all normal, use canister filter with chemipure. I feed them the above mentioned foods twice a day and clean the bottom of tank oce daily. They get bloated so quickly, I mean, they look ok at night and next morning they're bloated, could it be something in the granules, maybe that food isn't suitable for angelfish?

[Merrilyn]

Mate, once a week just isn't enough. Get onto those daily waterchanges as soon as you can, and I think you may see some immediate improvement.

Food, hmmm I think the granules are unlikely to be doing any harm, but change over to a flake if you think they might be overfeeding on it. Another thought is that they're so hungry at the evening meal, they're over eating. If you can get hold of an automatic fish feeder, you could set it to dispense two or three small meals while you're away at work, then still do your morning and night feeds as per normal.

They have a small stomach. Several small meals spread over 12 hours is better than two huge meals.

No criticism intended, just trying to come up with some solutions. :P

[giorid]

Thanks merrilyn,
You're probably right, it's just that some fish get bloated and some don't, I'm confused, sometimes I get suspicious about what I'm feeding them and whether it's doing them good, I guess we just have to trust the manufactures.