Gourami Death 2

[mikep]

After first losing a male neon blue dwarf and then a dwarf female, I've now lost a kissing gourami. Yesterday swimming and taking food, today I come home from work and it's floating head up in the floating plants. I have one kissing gourami left, it's looking fine, should I quarantine it and treat for internal bacteria anyway?
Water 20% change yesterday, water parameters look good.

 

[sylvia]

What exactly are the parameters?
What size tank is this and what other fish are in there?
How long did you have each of the gouramies and what symptoms, if any, did they show?
Have you had any other fish die, besides the gouramies?


Quarantining and treating fish is a stressful process and should be avoided unless there is no alternative. However, if you feel your remaining gourami is also sick, it may be a good idea to catch the disease at its early stages. To be honest though, I would wait for at least a few symptoms to show up - it may be that your fish isn't suffering from a bacterial infection in the first place. Have you considered parasites - both external and internal? Any sign of white stringy poo? Any bloating or pineconing of scales? What about how they swim/swam? And one more question, what have you been feeding them? Kissers and other gouramies appreciate vegetables in their diet and, kissers especialy, like lots of them. Maybe feed some de-shelled peas and also try zuchinni, spinach or lettuce.

 

[mikep]

Ammonia & Nitrite both zero, pH 7. The tank is a 120litre juwel.
There are now 2 Bolivian Rams, 10 red phantoms, 1 redtail shark & a pleco.

I've now lost 3 gouramis which have deteriorated and died in 24 hrs.
There were no symptoms that I could see. I've come home from work and found them dead. Except the male dwarf who I saw alive about 20mins before it died looking leathery.
The male dwarf was in the tank since last september, the female and the kissing gourami about a month.
There are no signs of dropsy or anything else.
I give them deshelled peas quite often and I've bought Aquarium herbivore flake.

 

[sylvia]

Honestly, there is no way I can say what killed them based off what you have said alone. I would think it's some kind of bacterial (internal) infection simply because this is common in gouramies and can take a long time to show itself or kill and, when it does cause death, it can do so very suddenly with little or no warning. Like I said before, if you suspect the other gourami may also be infected, by all means go ahead and treat it but be aware of the stress this puts on it and try your best to minimise it (dim lights, lots of cover, little disturbance etc). When you add fish, quarantine them before-hand for at least a couple of weeks; though a month is prefferable.

 

[mikep]

It's in quarantine now and so far so good.