Antisocial Gourami...

[WillyRBeek]

A little bit about the tank first:

I have a 25 gallon tank, fully cycled and stocked with 5 female Gouramis(2 opaline, 1 gold, 1 pearl and 1 silver), 6 Peppered Cory's, and 1 clown pleco.

Now, for the last few weeks one of the opaline gouramis has basically holed herself up in the school house decoration, and she spends about 95% of her time just sitting inside there. She seems healthy, all her scales and fins are fine, but this anti social behavior has me a bit concerned, as all the other gouramis are out swimming about with each other. She wasn't always like this, she was fine the first about 2 weeks I had her. I then noticed that she had a relatively large external parasite on her. It was not long after I removed the parasite manually that she begun her antisocial behavior.

Any thoughts?

 

[Ludwig Venter]

You could not ID this parasite can you.... Maybe it took so much out of her that she's in a recovery stage and will eventually be her cheerful self, or maybe the male's hormone development is beginning to take over his brains (as males tend to) and shes just antisocial hiding from his (not so gentle) approaches....

 

[WillyRBeek]

You could not ID this parasite can you.... Maybe it took so much out of her that she's in a recovery stage and will eventually be her cheerful self, or maybe the male's hormone development is beginning to take over his brains (as males tend to) and shes just antisocial hiding from his (not so gentle) approaches....

It was a pretty good size parasite from what I was told. It was roughly about the size of a pea, cut in half. It was kind of a beige color, with a bunch of little legs on the side. It was also mobile. It started out on this Gourami, then after a few days it jumped to the other opaline goruami, then a day later jumped back to this one. I bought external parasite meds in hopes of getting rid of it that way, but after a week they had had no effect. I was in my LFS talking to the manager and I asked him about it, and I described the size of the parasite to him, and he said they probably had nothing there that could kill one that big, and that my best bet would be to remove it manually, so I did so as soon as I got home.

There shouldn't be a problem with any males hassling her though, as all 5 gouramis are females, lol.

 

[Ludwig Venter]

Then I'd definitely ascribe it to the parasite, which imo sounds very much like a water flea.... two large suckers for attaching to the fish inserting a hollow sting feeding on the blood of the host(ess) may reach 6 to 7mm in length and has eight legs that are used for swimming. It is a crustacian. I think given time she will get her strength back.

 

[WillyRBeek]

Then I'd definitely ascribe it to the parasite, which imo sounds very much like a water flea.... two large suckers for attaching to the fish inserting a hollow sting feeding on the blood of the host(ess) may reach 6 to 7mm in length and has eight legs that are used for swimming. It is a crustacian. I think given time she will get her strength back.

I'm just worried that she's not getting a whole lot of food. Usually by the time she realizes it's feeding time and comes out of the school house, the other gourami's have gobbled it all up. Should I be concerned about this?