Gourami's Dying

[bigfish]

Help, need some urgent advice on a problem that i have been trying to solve for awhile. I did have 4 Gourami's in my tropical community tank now i'm down to 1!!!
They all slowly fade away there colours, swim at a funny angle and then just drop dead at a drop of a hat.

My gourami was fine when i went to bed, but this morning its practically at deaths door!!! no obivous marks on him, breathing normally.

First reaction was to check my water chemistry ammonia 0.1mg, nitrite 0 and nitrate 50mg and also checked Ph which is 8.4 (use to be 7.6) but 2 weeks ago i introduced a C02 Natural Plant system by Nutrafin.

Does C02 injector have any effect on Ph?

Im new to Gourami's, and i just can't understand why, the lfs said that they be ok in my community tank with no problems but they have taken very well.

Any info would be grately recieved

 

[Chasing Puck]

Adding CO2 should lower your pH, not raise it.

Dwarf gouramies, or the blue spot color morphs? Dwarf gouramies are frequently sick, have parasites, and generally in poor health now days. The farms are keeping them in bad conditions as they try to put out more--I would treat any new dwarf as suspect, and quarantine it for several weeks, treating for internal parasites as well.

 

[littleme1969]

Many things can affect PH.. but I thought adding carbon dioxide would bring it down rather than go up..
When you test your tap water straight from the tap.. you will get one reading and in most cases if you let it sit overnight you will get a large raise.. mine is 7.4 from the tap and overnight in an open test tube its 8.2 .
Have you added any rocks or wood? wood over time will bring down the PH a little. While certain Rocks will increase it.
The PH is high though and if its gone up over a short space of time that could be the reason for your gourami problem. No fish likes a change more 0.3 in PH. And the fact you have amonia in your tank says it still is not cycled wich is a stress for any fish

 

[chew-able]

Because of the nature of male betta's they tend to get a bit agressive with anything they think might be another male......I've seen on several occation a betta bullying male dwarfs until they lost the fight for life through stress alone.

Maybe this is what happened to yours?!?!?!


Chew

 

[J_acon]

same happened to me, reason unknown but they have stopped dying. But 4 died b4 that happened

 

[noonoo1]

Adding CO2 should lower your pH, not raise it.

Dwarf gouramies, or the blue spot color morphs? Dwarf gouramies are frequently sick, have parasites, and generally in poor health now days. The farms are keeping them in bad conditions as they try to put out more--I would treat any new dwarf as suspect, and quarantine it for several weeks, treating for internal parasites as well.

I have posted a couple of times about my sick dwarf G's and wish i had looked on the forum before i got them, although they are lovely fish, so many seem to have problems with illness. One lesson, learn to do plenty of research before you buy any type of fish.

 

[bigfish]

Hi my gourami is still alive this morning but he just laying on the bottom breathing really slowly, he still in full colour and every now and again he will swim to the top then he gets hit with the out flow of the tank, which sends him in a downward sprial to the gravel.

I've looked under the disease section in a handbook, thought maybe it could be skin flukes, as he does seem to scratch himself on one side of him.

Question is is it worth medicating the whole tank?

 

[Tednol]

if you got them all at the same time then maybe its just a weak batch that came into your lfs

 

[bigfish]

They were from the same shop but bought about two weeks apart. I have 1 lonely chap, is it worth the hassel of buying him a mate?