Yeah, here I go again. I've been doing a lot of reading and talking to
a few people, and I'm ready to go again. I firmly believe that my
first bunch of young angels died because of water chemistry problems.
My fault. The second batch were quite weakened from having just days
earlier coming though a chloramine attack. Not all agree. Opinions
abound on the topic of angel health issues. Most popular seems to be
the Angelfish Virus, or Angel Aids theories. And the warning that once
the disease has struck a tank, it will remain in the water, or be
carried by other, healthy fish. One of the university studies I read
that was well researched found that angels sent to them, dead or
alive, who were believed to have the virus, were found to have
numerous illnesses, but nothing new, and no virus isolated. I'm not
saying that the virus is a hoax, I know it is real, but I am seriously
trying to find reliable information, scientific studies, something
more than "I had angelfish once and they all died". One way to help
myself decide about the "once it's in your tank you can never keep
angels again" advice is to put a healthy angel fish into the tank
where I lost 12 angels in 8 weeks. I called Vance, my local fish guy,
and asked if he happened to have any angels. He rarely buys angels
from wholesalers, he only sells the odd group of youngsters that
individuals bring him after their first, and usually last, successful
home spawning. I found 3 silver angels in one tank, and a single koi
angel in another. I did the usual check-em-out routine, opened the top
and touched my finger to the water, follow my finger across the glass,
that kind of stuff, and the koi was by far the brightest and boldest
of the lot. It was a little over the size of a quarter. 12 bucks!
Vance was talking to a man at the other end of the store, 2 rooms
away, and I called out, Vance I want to buy this angel but I am not
paying
12 "choose your expletive from Roy's extensive list" dollars for an
experiment! He called back "what experiment", and as I approached, he
introduced me to the guy he was talking with and the three of us went
over my plans. I got the fish for $6, because, "I have a guy who has
been promising to supply me for over a year, and all he ever brings in
is 4 or 5 every few months, this guy's not as serious as he says he
is. So that's why you get the fish for $6. Fine. And if it dies in my
experiment I will demand my six bucks back. He's been at the store for
3 weeks. He's been with me for 27 hours and 29 minutes so far, and I
just fed him some freeze dried brine shrimp that he is eagerly chasing
all over the tank. I'll decide on some arbitrary time frame, 2 weeks,
6 weeks, I don't know yet, before I feel safe adding a new group to
that tank. Meanwhile, If anyone has pointers to scientific articles on
freshwater angelfish diseases, please send them my way.

-- Mister Gardener
-- Pull the WEED to email me