Injured Angelfish

Question
I have a injured angelfish and I'm looking to do anything to help it heal. Unfortunatly I am a new fish owner that trusted wal-mart to give me accurate info. My angel fish are about 4 inches and I had a convict in the tank. Well it attacked one of the angelfish and now its having a hard time. Its floating alot and its fins are in bad shape. I have a air pump but havnt turned it on and I have the tempurature at about 80 degrees right now. I have a 44 gallon tank and until the attack the fish was doing really well. Do you have any advice on anything else I can do? And should I turn the air on it seems to push him around alot so Ive shyed away from it.

Answer
Hi Luc;

Poor guy! Those convicts can really be jerks. ;-(

If you want to use the air but it pushes the fish around too much, you can get a valve to bleed off some of the air so it isn't so powerful. Don't just attach a valve and turn the air flow down. It puts too much stress on the pump and it could fail. The air must be let out into the room. Ask the local fish store for a "gang valve". It needs an inlet for the pump and two outlets with adjustable knobs. One will go to your airstone, and the other will just be open out into the room a bit.

You might want to get two other things at the fish store; Melafix and aquarium salt. The melafix helps fins and tissues heal as well as helping to prevent infection. The salt helps the fish with stress and also wards off infection. Follow both according to label directions.

Followups welcome!

I hope your poor angel feels better soon.....

At Your Service;
Chris Robbins