overreacting?

AngelfishRock

AngelfishRock

Small Fish
#1
Apr 8, 2004
45
0
0
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#1
the hardest thing for me is telling whether or not my fish has a disease. Sometimes I think it has something but then others I think I am just over-reacting. I swear it seems as though my fish has every disease possible. But then at other times I think 'well maybe your just over-reacting.' One thing I have noticed is that my angelfish has a bigger underbelly than i think i have normally noticed. Could this be bloating or something else? Its not all around just in the front part. Then my angel appears to have some pin-sized holes below the eyes on her gills. Is this hole in the head or does every angel have these? Sometimes (not often) she will twitch and that is also part of a disease. My tank levels are normal and nothing is extremely out of whack. Am i just over-reacting? Are there any books/websites with pictures of these diseases? Ive searched and searched and still cant seem to find any specifically with pictures of angelfish.
Also I am a bit disappointed with the fish store in which I bought my fish. Being a newbie to this tank stuff I had no idea which fish work with each other and which ones just wont get along. I was told by the employee at the fish store that ghost shrimp and the bottom feeder in which I got would live find with an angelfish. Wrong..and now knowing more about angelfish now than I did before I feel kind of stupid for believing the lady. But my angelfish will always try to attack my shrimp and bottom feeder so they hide away all the time and I feel like there really is no point to having them in the tank if all they are going to do is hide. My bottom feeder will come out and suck around on the tank but my angel will always go after it with any chance it gets. Its like a game of neverending tag.

Anyways..if you have any help.. let me know.
And thank you Lotus for asking my millions of questions I have. haha.
 

S

steakaphagus

Large Fish
#3
Apr 7, 2004
155
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England
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#3
Yeah, agree on the angelfish point - their name isn't relevant to the personality. A friend of mine had a shoal of about 10 neons wiped out by a hungry angel, and other friends have had lots of probs with them being aggressive. Personally, I'd only keep quite robust fish with angels, but other people may have different experiences....?
There are some good books on diseases, but can be a bit too specialised (lots of references to making slides and doing autopsies etc). The general fishkeeping books tend to skim diseases in a couple of pages, and by no means cover all the spectrum of nasties out there.
I think we all get the jitters about illness, but generally the fish will let you know it is ill, by changing behaviour or colour (get darker for example). Growths will also quickly become obviously visible, and can often still be treated in time. Other key points, eg faeces turning white and slimy, are hard to miss. I'd probably try to relax a bit....if you have to look real hard to find a symptom, then it probably isn't there. Also, over-treatment can lead to excess stress, causing disease!
 

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