Bloated Angelfish

Question
Hi Chris,
I have a 20 gal tank.Has been set up for few months now, with 4 angelfish(2.5-3in) , 5 neon tetras, 3 plecos and 3 guppies. I do water changes of about 5-6 gallons every week. I checked the water , all the parameters are fine.
In the last 2 week I have been feeding them with frozen bloodworms, frozen brine shrimp and I put a little flakes for the neons.
I have had 3 of my angelfish for a while, but the one that is sick i got about 1 month ago. He was fine, played like the rest of them. Yesterday he didn't eat well, and today I saw that his belly is bloated.He swims well, he is not loosing direction or something. Yesterday he was staying mostly at the bottom, but today he is staying close to the surface.
I just did a 5 gal water change and I added some melafix, but I don't know if that will help.
Please help. Should I get him in a separate tank? Use some antibiotics or antiparasite thing? Is it just constipation?
Thank you in advance.

Answer
Hi Paula;

I'm sorry it took so long to get to your question. My computer crashed and I finally got it up and running again.

He really should be separated. He needs rest away from the others and if it turns out to be something contagious the rest of the fish will be less likely to contract it.

Since he is bloated, don't try to feed him for a couple of days. It's possible he is simply constipated and just needs to rest his digestion. However, it's also possible he has some kind of infection. We just don't know without running tests and cultures and it just isn't done on pet fish usually. Sometimes even tests don't reveal anything though. Medicine in the water is unlikely to help him with an internal problem. You could try a medicated food but without knowing if it's parasitic, bacterial, fungal, etc., you have to guess at which type to try. It's up to you if you want to do that. If it turns out to be viral, medication isn't going to help and there's nothing you can do but hope he recovers. I wish I had some better suggestions for you. Let me know how he's doing...

At Your Service;
Chris Robbins