Flame Angel Please Help

1fishjones

Premium member
Everything seemed to be normal this morning, I fed the tank and left for an emissions test. A few hours latter and my Flame Angel's eye is bulging out with what looks like a lens over it.



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1fishjones

Premium member
Nitrate 0
Nitrite 0
Salinity 1.26
Ammonia 0
PH 8.0

These were all done with a API Saltwater Master Test Kit. I know these are not the best kits, & hope they're not useless.


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Sawdonkey

Premium member
Any twitching? Could be flukes.

However Popeye is usually a bacterial infection or caused by stress in new introductions. Needs clean water, low stress, and possibly an antibiotic.
 

#theMatrix

Active member
Epson salt works with popeye....
Fresh water bath for flukes but flukes would just be hazy not swollen ...
Looks like popeye to me.
 

1fishjones

Premium member
I hope he just scratched it on a rock, been in the tank for months with no problems. Seems to be fine otherwise, no twitching. I ran to AP and got some Melafix to try. Thanks for the help I guess I'll just have to wait and see.


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1fishjones

Premium member
Need your advice please.
Dosed Melafix yesterday, following directions & thankfully his eye looks a little better today. Directions say continue treatment for seven days then do a water change.
We should have made one before dosing the tank, we were so worried about the fish we forgot.
Now don't know how to continue. We've made small water changes every three or four days since starting the tank. Today is day four, protein skimmer's off & all carbon removed per directions. Would you continue treatment without changing the water or change water and continue treatment? We have a ten gallon quarantine tank up but don't think it's big enough for a Flame Angel
and really don't want to stress him out anymore than he already must be swimming around with one eye.
Please let us know
what you think.


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jsanchez

Member
I agree a 10 gallon tank will be sufficient for the flame angel. I've kept larger fish in the same size qt before and had no issues. Gotta work with what you have. Also I'd just continue and do the full seven day treatment. Do a water change and another round of treatment. Also furan 2 works so much better than melafix for popeye.
 

Mjl714

Well-known member
I agree a 10 gallon tank will be sufficient for the flame angel. I've kept larger fish in the same size qt before and had no issues. Gotta work with what you have. Also I'd just continue and do the full seven day treatment. Do a water change and another round of treatment. Also furan 2 works so much better than melafix for popeye.
I'd use 10 gallon qt as well, might even reduce stress with the flame all by itself. As far as diagnosis, if this just showed up all at once, I'd lean towards the injury camp.
 
From my personal experiences, angels have a higher tendency to get popeye, especially when netting. I feel they are very easy to scratch their eye against the net when trying to catch them from a bag.
 

1fishjones

Premium member
Improvement on the eye is slow, though he eats and acts like nothing ever happened I picked up some Focus & Metro to try anyway. Thanks everyone!


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1fishjones

Premium member
Pretty sure it's an injury because a few hours earlier he was fine. I have a few more questions. First will the Metro do more harm than good if it is an injury & will test of the water be affected by the Melafix treatment?
Thanks in advance!


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madjoe

Premium member
Angels get cloudy eye and popeye alot because they get flukes alot not saying yours has em but good possibility he does . Usually first sign of flukes is cloudy eye usually if u look real close at eye u can see the little white flat worm looking thing moving around in his eye sometimes gets under his eye and infects it causeing your symptoms . Fw dip is best to treat and check fish for flukes every new fish i get now gets a dip dont even have to be long if he has flukes 30 second dip u will see the flukes start to crawl out of him if u see nothing in 30 seconds hes fine if u see flukes it took one my butterflies 2 5 min dips to rid him it was nasty hundred came off and if u lolked at fish he looked perfectly healthy besides cloudy and popeye same with angel just something to be aware of
 

Mjl714

Well-known member
Angels get cloudy eye and popeye alot because they get flukes alot not saying yours has em but good possibility he does . Usually first sign of flukes is cloudy eye usually if u look real close at eye u can see the little white flat worm looking thing moving around in his eye sometimes gets under his eye and infects it causeing your symptoms . Fw dip is best to treat and check fish for flukes every new fish i get now gets a dip dont even have to be long if he has flukes 30 second dip u will see the flukes start to crawl out of him if u see nothing in 30 seconds hes fine if u see flukes it took one my butterflies 2 5 min dips to rid him it was nasty hundred came off and if u lolked at fish he looked perfectly healthy besides cloudy and popeye same with angel just something to be aware of
Like the fw dip, what parameters do you align with your qt/dt, temp?
 

madjoe

Premium member
Like the fw dip, what parameters do you align with your qt/dt, temp?
Suposse to have same ph and temp but thats alot of work and im nuts i just used tap water and some prime but i also dont acclimate so my methods r not for everybody although they havent let me down yet i also no the risks and im ok with what ever outcome happens
 

1fishjones

Premium member
Thanks MJ! Would you know if it's possible for flukes to show up after a couple of months? After a week of treatment with Melafix & Metro/Focus the eye looks much better, what's left looks like a scar. My plan for today was to do a 25% water change, change out the filter sock & pads, reintroduce carbon & Chemi-pure blue, then put him back in the DT. Now I'm wondering if I should start another quarantine tank, fresh water dip, & treat with Prazipro. What ta yah think?


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#theMatrix

Active member
With the angels ive had...
If theyre eating good. And no visible signs of disease or parasites i do 3 container dip. 1st rodi dip then DT water with prazi bath and last DT water dip to wash prazi and in tank they go...
I do use the prazi soaked food method for internal stuff. But thats later on.

The diff in PH and salinity is why the flukes fall off because they are affected more by the change than the host. So the fish can tolerate it while the flukes fall off because there stunned by the change in salinity that theyre looking for higher salinity in the FW/rodi dip. It will look like fish scales in the container you used. May even leave open sores on the host if the flukes was burried deep in the flesh
At times, the exposed flesh is what kills the fish after the flukes falls off...thats a risk from doing the dip method.
Consider a mild case of flukes the fish would have a higher chance at survival. Now, a case where the infestation is bad...the fish is now left with a body of sores ...that may lead to other infections and cause failure.


I apologize for the long post. But mike basically said it 1st.

If it was just popeye. Epson salt would work well...but im more concerned why fw dips arnt done as a precaution...it even serves as cleaning/washing the fish with what ever water is coming from the store it came from same as dipping corals...i dip fish.
 

Mjl714

Well-known member
"...Butterflies 2 5 min dips..."

Did you actually do 2 5 minutes dips, wow that seems long, but effective ?
 
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