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I have a 3 inch male angelfish in a 20 gallon aquarium with 1 male swordtail, 3 female swordtails, and 4 cory cats. I intend to move them into a 29 gal tank in the next few weeks, but am presently unable to. A day ago I noticed that the angelfish's eye seemed to be getting hazy. I had read somewhere that this could be a sign of pop-eye, and quickly located the book to further read up on the disease. It said other symptoms include swollen eyes, which the angelfish seems to have (I'm not sure if its the power of suggestion on my part, though), lack of appetite, and redened base of fins. It is eating fine and the condition of its fins was perfect. After watching it for a while, I noticed the male swordtail nipping at its eye twice. I thought little of it and added a little more cover for the angelfish in the form of some more large plastic plants to hide in. Today, both of his eyes are clouded over and fairly swollen. I looked at him a couple minutes ago and all of the swordtails were nipping at him (not just on the eye this time) and he was on the bottom of the tank, not quite vertical in the water.

Because of high pH in my area, I began using rainwater instead of local tap water in my aquarium about a week ago. I went about it by doing a 25% daily water change with exclusively rain water. The tank now contains a pH of 7.3, total alkalinity of around 100 ppm, hardness at 20 ppm, nitrites, nitrates and ammonia all at 0 (I have TLC and Amquel in reserve in event of an ammonia spike). The angelfish showed no signs of stress during the period of change.

I have now moved the angelfish into a 8" by 6" breeding net in the aquarium to keep him away from the nipping of the other fish. I have also added a dose of stress coat (by Aquarium Pharmaceuticals) to the water. Is the fish coming down with a bacterial infection? Does he need to be quarantined? Are swordtails normally an agressive fish? The LFS guy said they would be fine with the Angel, and they were as far as I could tell until yesterday. Are the swordtails nipping at it and the eye out of aggression or boredom, causing the eye to be cloudy and swollen like it is, or are they nipping it because it is cloudy and swollen? What do I need to do to help the Angel recover?

If you need any more info, post it or PM me. I will try to get ahold of a digital camera to take a picture of the fish as soon as possible, but probably will be unable to in the near future.

I appreciate the help.

Intresting that someone with nearly the same problem posted a minute before me. Will antibiotic help him if the pop-eye is caused by injury from the nipping swordtails?

I would suspect something other than pop eye. Cloudy eye, can be casued by many things, the most common to point out is water quality. You mentioned before you have had some trouble with the water. Stress also can cause cloudy eye, as well as cataracts ect. Bacterial infections or an eye injury will cause cloudyness as well. I am no expert on angelfish, but the tank enviroment seems stressfull. A 20 g tank with nine fish is a bit tight in my opinion for the angelfish. As for the swordtails nipping at the eye, I would think you should try and find a better soloution fo isolationing the angel. A seperat tank would be best, short of that, a tank divider, the current netting you are using might just add additional stress. Try to get a divider for your tank, a piece of drop ceiling light difusors work well, if your swords can't fit through the opening, or a piece of 1/8 plyxglass, drilled with holes. A picture might better help in a correct diagnosis.

Thanks for the help. Still working on the digital camera. I'll see what I can do for a tank divider.

I put a tank divider in 2 hours ago and transfered the angelfish into that part of the tank. It looked about like it had then. I had more stress coat after moving it in. Now the angelfish is on the bottom of the tank upside down, but still breathing. Things aren't looking good. If theres anything last-minute I can do, I'd appreciate the knowledge, but I suspect it to be too far gone for help.

I appreciate your help, Fuzzy.

I hope the fish is not too far gone. It really is such guess work trying to treat some problems. The water quality is paramount, check and recheck the paramiters for ammo, ect. It almost sounds like NTD (neon tetron disease) ( which is incurable) but I don't know if goldfish can get it or swordtails either. If your water quality is ok, might be all the stress of all the moving around. The fish may have some bacterial inffection, so keep an eye on the others for possible symptoms. Let me know how things progress, I'll look to see if I can find anything else out in the meen time.

Well the angelfish is gone. Poor thing.

Ammonia was at .1 ppm when I tested a few minutes ago. I realize this is a relatively insignificant ammount, but I treated with a dose of TLC anyway. I removed the divider.

Everyone else in the tank seems fine. What are the classic symptoms of NTD? I'll tell you if the angel had any.

Sorry to hear that. I couldn't find any link to goldfish with NTD. It is one of those types of fish problems that just seem to appear, becasue they show no real early signs, they just seem to appear, and then fish start to die. Here are some symptons of it sluggishness wieghtloss, loss of colour, secondary bacterial infections, known to cause bloat, or popeye.
Physical signs are loss or darkening of colour, brown or paling colour of areas around fins.A lot of fish disease's are hard to diagnose, unless a lab pyhsically examines the fish. One reason to try and keep an upper hand, by control fish stress, and keeping up the best water quality we can in the tank. I know you have been trying to give your fish good water conditions. Keep an eye on the swords, and post back if anything seems to be wrong.

I don't know if this is in any way related or not, but I woke up this morning and an angel in my 20 was dead. It was just dead. No strange behaviour before, no marks on his body, just laying on his side dead on the bottom of the tank. I am inclined to doubt any conection, but it is really recent to the other one dying (I bought another two angels after the last one died). If anyone knows of a reason for these two deaths to be connected, I'd appreciate the help. At this point, there are 2 other angels in the tank (both under 1 inch). I removed some of the fish I used to have so as to make it less crowded.

I appreciate the help.

Damn angelfish....
I tried keeping them yrs ago, and I never really had great sucsess. Between the fact they stress easy, (IMO) and are not the hardiest fish going, and finding tank mates, that don't nip there fins ect. I gave up. One thing I did come accross that might be of intrest for you to check into is about disolved organics in the water. Now from what I read, if they build up to much they can cause problems. The jist of it goes something like this. When you remove 20% of the water, that dose not remove 20% of the DOC's as they are called. (not sure if you read some post in the ng about this). So after time they build up in the water, and you need to do a greater water change to help keep the level down. I got to thinking this might be some of the trouble, since they are only in a 20 gallon tank. It might have been the same reason why mine would just up and die years ago, while my other fish in the tank would be just fine. After all in those day's I didn't even know to use a siphon, never mind change 20% of the water weekly.

Yeah, I suspect that if I have any more of them die mysteriously, that will be the last angels I ever buy. Oh well. No I haven't read about dissolved organics. What post are you talking about?

I'll try and find them again for u in the newsgroup. Curious myself, I know things like that have been touched on. Just not sure how big the concern should really be.http://www.cichlidfish.com/portal/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=14948
Thats the link to one thread about DoC's.