Honey Gourami is sick??

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Kathryn JL

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I have a honey gourami, who has appeared healthy since I bought it about 4 months ago.
The past few days I have noticed a bulge near the caudal fin, and the gourami has difficulty swimming - seems ‘tail heavy’. It frequently takes rests. I have included photos. It otherwise tries to swim around and continues to graze on algae and occasionally eats flake food as per normal habit.
Water changes occur weekly, parameters are all good, only real change is the addition of a live plant to the tank about 1.5 weeks ago. Thoughts??
 

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Swim Bladder Disease? Looks like she's swimming a little sideways too? That typically means they are constipated due to too many dry/low fiber foods. If you microwave some frozen peas for a minute or so then peel the skin off them and see it she'll eat them. The fiber in the peas is supposed to make them poop.

From what people have been telling me it's supposedly common and easily cured, but I have a Powder Blue Gourami with swim bladder disease - I think it started about 2 months ago (I'll check my forum posts) and has kind of come and gone. For the last 3 days, when she's just standing still her tail now drops completely vertically but she swims fairly straight especially if she goes really fast. . My biggest issue is that she barely eats and absolutely refuses to eat peas. although since last night she ate some tubex worms I may try some peas again today. I can't imagine a fish going for that amount of time without eating. The issue with feeding her peas is that they fall to the ground and she refuses to eat any food that is on the floor of the aquarium - so I mashed it into kind of a thick pea soup and flavored it with garlic and even added Metamucil and then shot it into her mouth with a syringe (no needle) - she tried it and ate a little. It didn't help with the pooping so she still had the disease.

A friend of mine on facebook said they had a goldfish that had it for years and was just fine = he ate and swam around. He just swam funny. Mine won't eat and won't swim unless I force her to. Driving me nuts. I've tried antibiotics as well. I'm afraid that by this time her intestines have died off because once she does eat a bit she commonly pukes it all up undigested the next day. If she would reliably eat I would just put her back in the main tank and see what happens but she's in a 5 gallon tank so I can watch her more closely.
 
This is great Jan, thanks so much for the information!! I will try the peas remedy as you suggested, and hope for the best!!
 

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