Is This A Disease?

[GOURA-MAN]

I recently started a 50 gal. tank, and put in 2 neon blue dwarf gourami, 1 gold gourami and 6 bleeding heart tetra. the littlest blue gourami died yesterday, after 13 successful days in my tank. The only cause of death I can think of is violence from goldie. He is aggressive. and big blue now has the same blue marks around his gills that little blue had just before he died. Is this a disease? or am I right? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[TammyLiz]

The gold is not compatible with the dwarfs. There is a good chance that he did kill the one that has already died and will kill the other one, too. I would suggest returning him. I don't know about blue marking around the gills of a fish that is already blue. Sounds normal but you seem to think its out of the ordinary. Could you try to explain that better? Does it look like an injury or is it something growing on the gills? Any way you could post a picture?

Tammy

 

[GOURA-MAN]

I knew my description would be inefficient the moment I clicked 'send'. Oh well...
Yes, I realize a blue fish will normally have blue gills... but being a guy, I work from the 8-16 crayola pack, so to me, blue is blue. However, the normal blue color of this particular fish is light blue, and has been since I bought him 13 days ago. Now, on days 13-14 the 'skin' around his gills is turning a dark blue.
Tammy, in your experience, is a gold agressive to all the fish in the tank, or just other gourami?

 

[diademhill]

How did you cycle this tank?

 

[GOURA-MAN]

First set up the tank with gravel, bubble wand, filter, etc.

Waited 3-4 days before first intro of fish and plants.
All the while putting in 'beneficial bacteria' product.

Checking Water Hardness/pH/Ammonia/Nitrite every other day since.

First night of Ammonia spike (5.0ppm) did a 25% water change w/conditioner in new water.
Also did a light vaccuming/ algae scraping.
Fish seemed to liven up after that...

...it's been 14 days since intro of first fish.

ammonia won't go down, but nitrites and nitrates are slowly rising!

 

[TammyLiz]

IME, golds are only aggressive to other gouramis. I keep mine with barbs and loaches, and the gouramis mostly bother each other. I have heard that its not a good idea to keep them with smaller tetras or anything with flowing fins that might get damaged...anything fast should be fine for those moments when the gourami just feels like having his own space.

Sounds like the gouramis are probably dying because your tank isn't cycled. Dwarf gouramis are known to be sensitive and because of this should only be added to a mature tank. The dark marks could be ammonia poisoning. I've heard of bettas getting "burns" like this from ammonia. What are the levels right now? Whatever the case, you need to be doing water changes as often as possible to keep the levels down as low as you can until it finishes cycling.

 

[sylvia]

What I suggest you do is return the dwarf gourami as it won't survive the cycle or the gold's aggression. If you are prepaired to do so, it may be best to return any other fish as well. Then cycle the tank fully (ie up until all you've got is nitrAte) using a pinch of fish food every other day (this works the same way as if you were keeping fish or adding pure ammonia).


Golds (and all other three-spot color morphs) are highly aggressive fish. Males are worse than females but females can be quite nasty too. To sex them, look at the dorsal fin (or post a picture here) - in males, its long and pointed, in females its short and rounded. In mature fish, besides this particular difference becoming more apparent, you can also sometimes see a marked difference in body shape - females are plumper; deeper-bodied and wider when viewed from above, while males are slimmer and more streamlined.

While its true that three-spots are usualy only aggressive towards other gouramies, if you happen to have a male or a pair, if the male builds a bubblenest, he is likely to extend his territoriality towards all other tankmates. Having said that, things like the barbs and loaches are examples of fish that can usualy (though not always) deal with this aggression (mainly by staying as far away from the male as possible ).

Just to clarify on something - if you plan to keep this gold gourami, don't add any other gouramies to your tank. The only exception would be if it turns out to be a female - in which case adding a couple more similarly-sized three-spot FEMALES should be fine (but re-arange the tank before adding them and wait until after the cycle is complete).