Nose down Angelfish

[all_waze]

Bought 7 large Panda Koi angels out of PA. They were shipped overnite FEDEX yesterday pm and arrived today here in Florida @10:30. Were packed ok but may have gotten a little chilled. After acclimating them into a 55g, 2 of them immediately went into a nose down position. The other 5 swam around and are exploring their new tank. One of the two eventually swam upright but is still a bit shakey. The other is still swimming nose down and occasionally turns on it side and floats to the top but manages to catch itself and goes back into the nose down position. It manages to stay with the others but still nose down. Any ideas?

[bushwhacker]

man thats too bad, you may get lucky but not a good sign for sure

[all_waze]

Both fish have recovered. Appear to be stable and swimming around with the rest. I am gonna guess that these two were pretty sensitive to possibly an ammonia build up in the bag. Can't find anything else that might have caused the problem unless these two were just overly sensitive to being shipped. But at least they look like they are on the upswing.

[Rocky06fx4]

Sounds to me the angelfish were going through shock from acclimation. Sounds like you got past the hard part.

[Robbybox]

I can explain what happened to your angles!!!

When fish are shipped or spend hours in a bag, they consume the available oxygen. As they respire, they breath out CO2, which gradually replaces the oxygen in the bag. The buildup of CO2 affects the pH of the water, driving it DOWN. As you mentioned, the fish in the bag are also producing ammonia as they travel. This isn't as bad as it could be, because at low pH (which we now have), ammonia (NH3) ionizes into much less toxic ammoniUM (NH4). So the fish are not affected by ammonia poisoning... yet.

The madness starts when you open the bag your fish arrived in! Oxygen rushes in, and the CO2 escapes. In response to this sudden change, the pH of thier water SWINGS back up (very stressful to fish). But that's not all! As the pH rises, the ionized ammonium in the water converts back into toxic ammonia. Your fish are hit with a double whammy of pH shock and sudden poison.

For this reason, the best way to deal with fish that have spent a long time in a bag is NOT to drip acclimate or otherwise slowly introduce your new water. This simply prolongs the time the fish spends exposed to ammonia in their old water. Instead, float the SEALED bag in the tank untill temperature equalizes, then cut the bag and net your fish into the new tank right away.

I am not aware of anything that can be done to prevent the sudden change in pH when the bag is opened... as far as I know, that's just one of the liabilities of shipping fish. Lots of fish "hit the bottom" in a new tank initially, and recover in a matter of minutes or hours. You just have to give them time. :)

Hope this was helpful!!!
Robby

[ippielb]

Thats really really helpful! I'm going to do this when i buy fish, as i live an hour drive away from any fish store.

[Robbybox]

ippielb, now I'm a little nervous... I just got a handle on that information myself, and while it explains what happened in waze's case, I don't consider myself wise enough on the subject to guide anybody's future actions. I know the principles I described above are sound, what I don't know is the values...how much air, how much water, how much time, how many fish, etc...
I'd say traditional, gradual acclimation is definitely best unless your fish are bagged for four hours or more. I think those chemical processes happen slowly enough to be mostly a concern for people shipping fish overnight or driving them from, say, Houston to Dallas.

Best of luck!!

[Lady Hobbs]

You never want to release bagged water into your own tank.