Problem With Bellus Angel

tyuksel · Feb 2, 2020

Hello all,
I have recently purchased a Bellus Angel pair. They were fine in the tank for about a week. Eating frozen food eagerly since day one. However the tangs in the tank didnt like the male since day one and there were clashes here and there. For the last 2 days he stopped eating and upon close inspection i realised a lesion on his side which you can see in the photos. He still swims but is nt very energetic. Was easy to catch him with a net. I am keeping him in an acclimation box for now. I have no clue how to proceed from here so any advice is appreciated.

Tank Parameters :
Salinity : 33ppt
KH : 7.5
Ca: 440
Mg:1140
PO4 : 0.1ppm
NO3: ?

Wen · Feb 2, 2020

Nice looking Bellus.
Can you tell us more...what size tank, other fish, do you have a qt available?
IMO, His injury doesn’t look too bad or infected. With a good diet and clean water it should heal up fine.
Can you rearrange your rock work?
I’ve partitioned off a section of dt on occasion with that plastic lighting grate you can get at Home Depot and cut to size. This would allow him to not be harassed, time to heal and other fish get used to him.

tyuksel · Feb 2, 2020

Hello, the tank is 700 Lt (180 gallons). He shares the tank with a female bellus, 4 similarly sized tangs (powder blue,yellow,sailfin and kole). There are also 3 small wrasses and 9 chromis.
Sadly i dont have a QT tank and can't really move the rockwork. I will keep him in the acclimation box until i see some improvement in his condition or he starts eating. I am curious if there are any dips to help him recover faster.

LAReefer4Life · Feb 2, 2020

Aggression can be terrible on the fish immune system so great start by placing him in acclimation box and away from the harasser. You need to keep his stress levels down for time being, but if things don't start to heal on its own, I recommend giving the fish a 90 minute bath using Ruby Reef Rally to help prevent possible bacterial infection. This medication is very light on the fish and could give him a good kick start.

tyuksel · Feb 2, 2020

Thanks for your post. Sadly i don't think i can get that here in Turkey. I checked Amazon and they dont ship it here either.

An ngo · Feb 3, 2020

tyuksel said:
Thanks for your post. Sadly i don't think i can get that here in Turkey. I checked Amazon and they dont ship it here either.

I just added a female bellus angel like your and my purple tang try ti beat her up right away. She kind of panic that way I have to move my purple away to my cousin’s tank. Tang really aggressive toward to new fish. When they start bullying, it will bullies until dead. I added a bicolor angel and he got beaten to dead with bad wound on its body after 2 days. I recommend you to rearrange rockwork to reduce aggression, but my best choice still isolate that tang at least one week and reintroduce into your dt

tyuksel · Feb 4, 2020

Yeah they were fine for a few days, then this happened. Yesterday morning i moved him to a makeshift quarantine tank with some bio bricks and water from the display and an airstone. However he was dead this morning. Sad part of this hobby. You wait a year to get a fish only to loose him. Sometimes with the rest of the fish in your tank even.

An ngo · Feb 4, 2020

tyuksel said:
Yeah they were fine for a few days, then this happened. Yesterday morning i moved him to a makeshift quarantine tank with some bio bricks and water from the display and an airstone. However he was dead this morning. Sad part of this hobby. You wait a year to get a fish only to loose him. Sometimes with the rest of the fish in your tank even.

So sorry for your lost, i understand your situation tho. I have lost couple fish which include pink tail wrasses because of my purple tang. Tang tail can do serious damage on fishes body since they have a “knife” at their tail and their tooth. My bellus around 2” and she was beaten up by my tang which has some mark on her body. She still eating fine, but hopefully she will heal up in the next couple days. Here is my crazy tang