gross-looking gourami

[DN530]

I have a male dwarf gourami in a 29-gal. Ph is at 7.0, ammonia and nitrite levels are normal. I think the gourami has some sort of fungus infection. he has a big sore on his side and it has some white fuzzy stuff coming out of it. i'm not sure what to do. i'm already putting maracide in the tank for the ick that my cardinals caught. but they are almost cured. is it ok to use other medications at the same time? if so, what do you recommend? Is the fungus contagious?

 

[Inchworm]

Hi DN530

It sounds like your gourami has a bacterial infection. But let me ask you some questions.

You mentioned that you were treating the tank for ich. When was the last time you gave the tank a thourogh gravel cleaning and a good water change? What is the water temperature? If it is higher than usual, did you raise it quickly?

How are the other fish in the tank. particularly the corys and the pleco?

 

[subopposite]

I had bad luck with my dwarf gouramis. For some reason my water wasn't right or something. All my other fish were basically fine, but those guys never did good with me. My luck since they were my favorite fish at the time. Anyhow, mine got a red streak vertically behind the head down the body and then they would turn whitish in that area and then die. Basically, the whitish came from whatever it was eating their skin dead. It really sucked since I tried hard to keep them well and came up with no answers in the end. I won't buy them anymore and that saddens me as well, but I don't want to kill anymore of them either. I also did plenty of water changes and that never helped either and also put them in a quarantine as well. Nothing worked for me. I hope it all works out well for you. I am the gourami killer unfortunately. Many people have good luck with them, so good luck to you as well.

 

[DN530]

Hi Inchworm,
I clean the gravel everytime i change the water, which is every 10-14 days. With the ich, i've been changing 10% of the water every other day, but not cleaning the gravel since its not neccessary until about the 12th day. I raised the temperature to 81 degrees F to help out with the ich. the gourami actually had the wound on it's side 2 weeks before the ich showed up. I just thought the wound may have been from a quarrel with another fish, but apperently not. the corys and plecos are doing fine. I just noticed tonight that the gourami has a small sore by his mouth so i think the fungus may be spreading. Is it contagious? i'm afraid to put any other medication in with the ich medicine because i don't want to overload my tank with chemicals. the ich should be clearing up within the next 2-3 days because the white spots are rapidly disappearing on the cardinals. they've had it for about a week.

 

[Mesome]

I recently had something similar happen to my male dwarf. He shared a tank with a couple of guppies, and he got this horrible looking welt on his side. I talked to the guy at PetSmart (not sure where they came up with that name...they have never given me the impression of being smart...) and he had me use an anti-bacterial medicine. The welt got worse in a couple days, sprouted what to me looked like fuzzy white mold, and he died. I was almost relieved to find him at the bottom. He was so sick, and looked like he was suffering. I really hope that you can cure yours. Please keep us posted!

 

[Paceysmum]

HI There

the same thing happended to my dwarf last week, i have never seen anything like it before, but soon after that i had a major fish loss. No symptoms just dead fish , 2 danios, 1 cherry barb, 1 ram, again i still have no idea what happened and i am just hoping the tank has cleared itself and i have no more loss. I was treating the tank at the same time for Ich aswell, could the medicene cause problems in Gouramis??