How do you treat a fish before they suffer from dropsy?

[Renzo77]

Couple weeks back I had a gourami die of dropsy and my second gourami is starting to act similarly to when my previous gourami before it suffered from dropsy. The symptoms so far are paleness and slight fatigue with my gourami sometimes perching herself on a plant sometimes and not moving her fins. Most of the time she swims around and eats normally.

I just got back from holiday so i haven't gotten the chance to test my water and do a water change
but last time I checked nitrite and nitrate were almost 0, had a slight spike of ammonia (between 0.1 - 0.2 for some reason no matter how much I do a water change it doesn't go away) and the PH was 7

 

[Colin_T]

If they are dwarf gouramis they could have Tuberculosis (TB) or the Iridovirus, both of which can cause internal problems like bloating/ dropsy, and neither can be treated.

If you have a quarantine tank, you can try treating the fish with anti-biotics, which might help for some bacterial infections but won't do anything if it's TB.

Apart from that, doing a 75% water change and gravel cleaning the tank every day for a couple of weeks might help. Make sure any new water is free of chlorine/ chloramine before it's added to the tank.

Clean the filter if it is more than 2 months old and hasn't been cleaned in the last 2 weeks.

If the fish stops eating, then euthanise it.

Don't buy anymore gouramis for that tank and try to avoid dwarf gouramis (Trichogaster lalius) or any of their colour forms.