Dwarf Gourami Concerning Me

[confusion]

I have 3 dwarf gouramis in my 55G community. He's been in there for about 4 months now. Yesterday and today, he has been completely uninterested in food. He's not hiding or acting out of the ordinary, other that he swims next to some tall plants and just stares at them, even when feeding. As with most dwarf gouramis, he normally eats like a pig, so I'm concerned something is wrong.

The stats are good - nitrates are a little high because of ferts for the plants, but they've been that way for a while. It's a heavily planted tank with C02 dosing, but does have a large bubble wand. There are a good number of tank mates - 2 angels, 7 serpae tetras, 2 plecos, 5 cherry barbs, 5 black neons tetras and a partridge in a pear tree. There has been no agression that I've seen between them.

Should I be concerned? My experience has been that when they don't eat, they're sick.

 

[zoekin8yg]

firstly you have a bad stocking there. angels and gouramis shouldnt really be together. and if you have common plecs they will out grow your tank. How high are your nitrates? and what actually are your ammonia and nitrite.

 

[confusion]

My ammonia is 0, nitrites 0, nitrates about 100.

 

[confusion]

I wasn't very clear before - only one of them are having a problem. The others are fine.

 

[zoekin8yg]

Nitrates are really quite high, I would do a water change and keep an eye on him.

 

[WILDER]

Your nitrates are high, when did you last maintain the filter
Water change, probably why he's off colour.
Also check your tap nitrate that tells you if you are doing enough maintance on the tank.

 

[confusion]

I do 30% weekly water changes, but also add the root tabs. I think my nitrates are 0 out of the tap. I have 3 filters on the tank, and I do maintenance to one of the 3 every month to make sure I don't wipe out the bio filter. One filter is a rena XP3 and the others are the marineland 350 bio wheel jobs. His color, by the way, is good. The only symptom is that he's not eating. He has his fins flared and looks good otherwise - no gasping, hiding, rubbing, or anything else I can detect. I guess my question is really whether I should worry about a fish that isn't eating who is otherwise acting normally.

 

[WILDER]

If your tap nitrate is 0 something wrong as no way should your reading be that high.
Sounds like your tanks overstocked and the filters are not coping, though you have enough filters.
Plecs are massive waste producers, i would do a good gravel vac, remove all the ornaments and give the subsrate a good clean.

 

[WILDER]

Confusion sounds like to me that you are not doing enough maintance on your substrate, plecs are messy and create alot of waste.
Remove your ornaments sound like the debris is building up.

 

[confusion]

I just tested nitrates again, and they came back at 20mg/L. Not sure what that works out in ppm. I just got my new hagen mater test kit and the scale is different than my old API kit.

 

[zoekin8yg]

mg/l is the same as ppm

 

[WILDER]

Ok thats fine then they say that the api nitrate test kit can be doggy.
Try him on some of his favourite foods, they can get bored of there food.

 

[confusion]

never mind, it looks like mg/L is roughly equivalent to ppm.

 

[confusion]

I have to wonder about the API kit. I'm guessing that it's just a difference in the type of reaction used to create the color change, but for most of the tests, the hagen set uses 3 reagents, while the API kit only uses two (for most tests). The reading seemed a little out of whack given the amount of plants in there. Even with the plecs, the gravel is pretty clean. Plus, I don't think I'm supposed to vacuum it so the plants will have something to pull their nutrients for. The plecs are about 5 inches each now. I think they're sailfin plecs, so I don't think they'll get to the normal monstrous size. In any event, I have a new tank under contruction in my basement that should hold them when their full grown, so long as they don't have a growth spurt in the next 2 months.

Thanks for the help. By the way, I had never heard that angels and gouramis don't get on together. I have 4 tanks now that have a mix of gouramis and angels and the only problem I've ever has is when the mated pair of angels in my office tank (not this tank) are breeding, they keep everyone else down in the plants.

 

[zoekin8yg]

your tank is still over stocked though. so keep an eye on the nitrates