Water conditions? How long have you had him? What are you feeding him and how often? Other fish or inverts in the tank? It's hard to see the issue clearly under the blue light, a clearer pic without the blues would help. Thoughts: could the tail have been nipped by other fish or inverts, these guys being sedentary even emerald crabs can do damage. In questionable water conditions and a lacking diet any injury can turn into a bacterial infection pretty quickly.
Had him for a lil over 3 months I feed him twice a week normally. (2-3 ghost shrimp or 1 goldfish). There is one damsel in the tank that damsel has been in there for around 3 months. 0 ammonia and nitrites. I cant really get a better picture my phone isn't capturing it well. The best I can explain is his tail looks like its covered in a thin coat of white slime. I doubt the damsel attacked him so I am not sure what it could be.
Goldfish is a poor choice in feeding, an appropriate sized molly is the best live fish offering for this species. When is the last time they ate and have they refused food? I'll defer other disease diagnoses to the experts, but with the labored breathing and your description, velvet would not be out of the question. Sadly once affected an angler likely will not recover.
@Jay Hemdal
@vetteguy53081
Tail issue looks to be bacterial and the substances on rock suggest a lack of maintenance and/or water quality issue.
What is current Ammonia and nitrate level, frequency of water changes and age of tank?
Are you using RODI water or tap water from the faucet?
Fresh meaty foods such as live fish and ghost shrimp are best and I agree with lionfish in utilizing mollies in lieu of guppies and goldfish which often are carriers of disease.
As these fish like to burrow and blend in with tank surroundings, this can also be caused by light injury.
Asure Ph is no less than 8.1 and for some reason they need alk at higher range of 9-11
I use rodi water ammonia nitrite are 0. Nitrate there is very little if any. Ph is between 8.0 and 8.2. I am not sure what my alk is
Zero and zero ?
Are you by chance using Api test kit?
I just caught the amount you were feeding, a painted angler at about 2" could be fed a dozen ghosties and 1-2 mollies a week to maintain required nutrition. At best you can increase their food intake, stop feeding goldfish and include mollies while maintaining optimum water conditions. A beginning bacterial infection on the tail would likely cause no other symptoms like rapid breathing. Anglers will not handle any meds that I know of, so the only treatment is optimum water conditions and good nutrition, this would easily correct a mild bacterial infection.
Anglers can live a while with diseases like ich and velvet before they take their toll. Because of their skin texture and coloring it's very hard to see and even so, there is no treatment I've ever seen successful. I've had anglers pop up with these diseases at about the 3 month mark even though they were the only one in the tank. Be careful of adding other fish to that tank until you get it figured out. As I stated above, a mild bacterial infection would not have caused labored breathing, and this would have been noticeable much further in advance before becoming deadly.
When your anglers popped up with these diseases did they die too? Also what do you think could be the cause of labored breathing? I have tested all my water parameters and they seem good. Is a chance that he caught parasite from a goldfish? It really feels like this just came out of nowhere I have tried my hardest to make everything right for him.
Any parasites from a goldfish would likely be internal, so the 1st thing that would happen is they would stop eating or you may seen white poo. The fish would not deteriorate quickly and you would have seen it coming and had time to react, it wouldn't advance that fast after eating a few days ago. Because of the anglers skin with camo white fuzz, irregular color and texture, diseases like ich and velvet are easily missed, he could have easily come in with it. Check out that damsel to see if there are any signs of flaky looking skin or other signs. If you offered salt water fish for food this could also be a vehicle for disease. Anglers can also have labored breathing due to overfeeding, but that's not what it is in this case. Simply put: the labored breathing could be from poor water quality, high ammonia; over feeding; the effects of a disease.
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Sorry, I was traveling all day and just saw this. The rapid breathing without any apparent water quality issues points to a systemic disease. I’ve had difficulty diagnosing and then treating diseases in anglers….it could be bacterial (given the white discoloration) or protozoans or more rarely, flukes.
If the breathing is too fast, it will be difficult to guess at a treatment and hit the correct one in time.
A FW dip might buy you some time if it is brooklynella or flukes, but I try not to take anglers out of the water.
Jay
If the breathing is too fast, it will be difficult to guess at a treatment and hit the correct one in time.
A FW dip might buy you some time if it is brooklynella or flukes, but I try not to take anglers out of the water.
Jay
Yeah, all of this also, anglers are a hard lot once something goes wrong. They also wouldn't go down so fast with flukes either, there would be other indicators . With flukes you would have seen an increase in activity, even jetting to the surface and around the tank, to pull water through their gills. They could also get cloudy eyes and would lose their appetite well before going down hill. Treating flukes with prazi pro has been successful, but the dosage should be split into 3rds and spread across the day. I don't think it is flukes. All of the other diseases would present fast and the prognosis is not good. The anglers have knack for hiding their weaknesses right up until the end, and by then it's usually too late. I've never seen a treatment successful with any of those diseases.
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