This whole entire horrifying ordeal sound eerily similar to how my large angels died. I had my emp and majestic angels for over two months and the majestic came down with these symptoms and died. One week later my emp had these symptoms and died. I suspected cyanide poisoning since the fish were bought at the same time and were from the same store. Sadly i had added a queen angel to the sytem three days before the emp got sick and died. I had the queen for seven days and it got sick and died three days later. Luckily none of my other fish fell ill and are healthy to this day.
When I brought the bodies to a couple of stores I was told it was a species specific bacteria and I would not lose anymore fish unless they were angels. One store told me to not add any angels for a few weeks and the bacteria would die off on its own without angels as hosts. I do not know what bacteria it would have been as I was not told details.
I had my regal angel on hold at the LFS for three months and set up a 90g QT tank plumbed into my system. If I have a sick fish I can turn a couple of ball valves and cut it off from the water column. I then picked up the regal and put him into the QT tank with the system water and watched and waited. I was given a bright yellow powder in baggies to treat the water on the QT if the regal fell ill. He never did and is in my display healthy and happy.
I do not know what the medication is, but am glad to have just in case. The thing with this type of disease is that it shares symptoms of many other diseases and you do not know the course of treatment to go with. The fish that did get sick and died ended up with ich before displaying the other symptoms. Nobody else had it so I fed medicated food with garlic and thought I could let them fight it off.
I really thought this was happening with Laurie's fish and thought she may lose all the angels at worst. I had no idea she would have such a heartbreaking disaster. I was sick and broken hearted watching three of my beautiful angels die in a week. I cannot begin to imagine losing the amount of fish she has lost in such a short time span.
Now when I add fish I put prazipro and cupamine into the bag the fish came form for over an hour... now I don't know if that will help if a fish is infected with this type of bacteria. Qting a fish of course helps to not spread the disease but if we don't know what we are dealing with, how do we even begin to treat a sick fish.
I am so very sorry for your losses Laurie.
