Wth is going on w newly bought angels ?

I usually wouldn't post this but with embarrassment, I will share w you in hopes of others avoiding this / gettint some info.

I have been in the hobby for 6-7 years and while am no expert, I consider myself to be fairly good with fish. I have kept multiple difficult species and generally did well w qt'ing everything to avoid ich by using TTM and before that, hyposalinity with no losses.

Recently, I got it into my brain that I want a large angel and I decided to go with a juvi emperor. I set up 10 gallon qt (they are fairly small so I don't see a need for a larger qt tank. I picked one up from Rainbow pets that was eating Mysis and was about 3 inches. At the same time, I got a flame angel from a buddy who got it at the wholesale. Put both into qt w a plan to do TTM. The emperor swam around, ate the few Mysis I placed in and generally acted normal. I went to work, came back, he was dead w his mouth wide open. No damage, no spots, nothing except death. The flame was breathing very heavily.

I had premade water which I put into a 5 gallon bucket and moved the flame angel there. Figuring I just had an unlucky break I bought another emp and put him into a new qt along w the flame later that evening. He lived about 12-15 hours w the same story as above. I barely feed in the qt to avoid ammonia when first placing fish. He died but the flame was normal at the time, finally dying a few days later (never got him to eat). After doing some research, I decided that I have velvet, most likely from the flame. TTM doesn't work on velvet so it's either copper or chloroquine phosphate. .

I ended up ordering a larger juvi online and that one did not eat anything and is dying as we speak.

To rule out several easy possibilities, I run a small koralia pointed up as well as a bubbler so oxygenation is not an issue. I'm very careful w feeding and have a ammonia badge as well as a cycled foam filter, so that's not an issue either. I clean and dry the tanks between uses. I match the source salinity usually about 1.020. I'm basically at a loss. Either way, I killed more fish in the last 2 weeks than I have in 4 years.

If any of you have suggestions, or have experience w large angels and getting them through qt, please share.

I recently acquired a red sea regal angel from Jan's Tropical Fish and it took about 6 days to eat, but he's eating pellets and appears to be doing well. Of course, I'm not out of the clear yet. The last regal angel I got from jan's ate about an hour after I put it in the tank, but unfortunately, I had a power outage and it perished.

I would just be selective of your source and observant before you purchase your specimen. Angels are hit and miss, and believe me, I've killed my share. =[

I haven't had much luck with emperors or flames. I finally was able to keep a flame for an extended period of time after losing a few.

I agree with [MENTION=3768]Confuse[/MENTION] you can try as many angels as you want and most will all die specially if you buy from wholesale or stores like rainbow since they flip fish pretty quick and so many diseases can happen with so many fish. For example I bought like 3 flame angels they all died even one was kinda eating. I found one at the aquarium in culver city which they had for 3 weeks, the angel was $70 which is a lot higher than wholesale or retail but since I knew they had him for 3 weeks, was very active and asked them to feed it so I bought and he still there. So most of the issue is where you are purchasing the fish. I would also move up tank size, I would get at least 20g and make sure the biological is established.