angel fish floating sideways

Question
We have an angel fish (we think it a female) that has for the past several weeks been floating either on her side or upside down.  We kept her in a tank with other fish, two being angels and we think males.  The female (we will call it that for identifcation purposes) started floating on it's side or upside down.  We had one fish that appeared to be munching on this females gills so we removed her to a tank of her own.  She is still floating.  While we noticed that the red inside her gills seems to be less in intensity, she is still floating sideways.  However we noticed that she appears to have side buldges or interior bubbles causing the sides to buldge. This has been going on for weeks. We thought she was dying but she is still hanging on-sideways.
Any suggestions?  We are at a loss
Thanks.

Answer
Hi Roz,
Thank you for your letter and for sharing the problems in your tank with me. You are experiencing the main drawback of the aquarium hobby: dying fish.
At my web site I have posted a page about easy aquarium care, including what to do in emergency situations like yours:
http://steamboats.com/aquarium.html
It sounds like your fish is pretty far gone, but if you want to try to save her, you can try the proceedures for emergency care at the bottom of the page.
Feel free to print out the page and refer to it in order to prevent future situations.
I realize the hobby can cause grief, especially if you have kids around, or if you have become attached to a particular fish.
However, if you enjoy the hobby, I encourage you to try again. My beset advice is to be careful to not overfeed, which is the leading cause of fish loss.
Write back if you have any further questions.
Nori