Posted: 1/26/2007 1:31:35 PM EDT
| A co-workers Angel fish has lost all pigment.. Seems healthy, all fins are ok, and does as it always has, just lost all pigment. All 3 other Angel fish are ok. Whats something to look at? |
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When you say the water tests are "ok" what is ok? By the numbers please (nItrates, nitrites, AMo, calc, alk, Po4. salinity..) How large is the aquarium? How many fish and how large in this aquarium? What are they being fed? SPec on the aquarium.. Filtration, lighting ect... Recent changes to system? |
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The intensity of coloration in tropical fish is usually closely related to the the fish's health. He needs to monitor water quality, type of food consumed and surroundings. Healthy fish will almost always have good color. The alpha fish will usually have the best color and ones that are picked on will often be more pale. Maybe some of his fish have paired off??? If the water is good and they are fed something like Tetracolor they will color up nicely. Frozen or freeze dried tubifex is good for color (and conditioning for breeding), but you need to be wary of transmission of diseases to the tank. Make sure there is a lot of cover in the tank, also. |
Interesting that it happened overnight. I do not have much experience with south american cichlids, but if it were an African cichlid, the instant color change might have something to do with a heirarchy (as someone else mentioned before in this thread). Though, angels and their related cousins, the dicus are usually considered quite placid. When you tested water parameters, what readings did you get? It would help us if we knew the following things: Temp: pH: KH: GH: NH4 (ammonia): NO2: (Nitrite): NO3: (Nitrate): The most important readings are the Ammonia, Temp, Nitrite, and pH. Ammonia and Nitrite are very toxic for fish, and should both be reading zero. The temp for Angels should be in the high 70's maybe around 75-80° if I remember correctly. (I might very well be wrong on the temp). pH should probably be around 6.8 or 7.0 (IIRC). More on the acid side at least, but neutral is probably OK. GH and KH refer to "general hardness" and "carbonate hardness" respectively General hardness=total dissolved salts/solids in the water, too much. or too little can stress your fish Carbonate hardness basically refers to alkalinity. It will affect pH, itself, but more importantly it will influence how quickly/how much your pH will change, when organic matter and CO2 break down/influence the water chemistry. Another thing you might want to consider, is how much light the angels are getting. Do they have places to hide, from more aggresive fish? It could be that the one angel you are talking about is getting bullied. If it is not the water parameters or stress from another fish, it's probably the diet. |
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FieroLoki, I looked up some of the parameters in one of my species guides. It could be related to age, but it is funny that the color change was very sudden. Here are the parameters that my guide gives: (Baensch. aquarium atlas 1, the whole collection 1-3 is worth it's weight in gold, depending on how in depth your friend is involved in the aquarium hobby) Temp: 75°-82°F It gives a pH to induce breeding, but sometimes breeding pH and normal pH will differ. based on the rainy season for wild caught fish. For instance during the rainy season, the pH will lower because of all the organic matter being washed into the streams where the fish live. This can induce breeding in certain species. I would venture to guess that he has captive bred fish, so pH parameters are going to be different than for nature. I would say anything from 6.5 to 7.0 would be acceptable. Captive bred fish are usually much more tolerant of varrying water parameters. Now, he has had this fish for a while, and it has been living with the other fish for a while, so bullying from other fish is probably not the problem. In this guide, it says that you can supplement the diet of angel fish with: lettuce spinach mosquito larvae tubifex worms I would also try giving them some frozen brine shrimp and bloodworms spirulina flakes might also be a good choice too. It does not say anything about life-span, but I would guess that angels are fairly long lived. Good luck, hoped this helped a little. |