Lost a honey gourami, wonder why

[Beastije]

Five weeks ago I bought a most likely pair of honey gourami. They were amazing,went to an established 54l tank. They stayed separated, interacted, slightly chased each other, utilized the whole tank, ate well.
Firday I noticed the more boisterous one, the one staying in the front of the tank (others place was the back of the tank), maybe slightly paler, suddenly resting on the substrate, on the leaves near the surface, gasping for air, bending to the side. I did an emergency 50% water change, water of a similar temp, not same. By the next day, the fish was dead. I didnt notice any symptoms prior, the fish was active, interactive, eating, pooping normally.
I feed a combination of live microworm, live baby brine shrimp, frozen daphnia/cyclop/bbs, dried food made with insects like fluval bug bites, sera vipan baby. Since this tank houses snails, I feed vegetables like peas and zucchini, so there is always a vegetable matter for the fish to eat during the week
Water is at 25 C, 5 cm or so gap between surface and coverglass to ensure humid air for them to breathe.

I am at a loss what has happened, since I didnt notice any symptoms prior, no redness, no nothing that would indicate this. I did however lose a large snail recently, but I did a water change after I discovered it. Should not have spiked so much to cause a sudden death, was few days before this incident.

I wonder for how long should I watch the other gourami, if it is worth obtaining a second one at some point ( I wanted a pair and try my hand at breeding them) and if I am not stressing the remaining gourami by leaving it alone in the tank.
Thank you

 

[Colin_T]

Friday I noticed the more boisterous one, the one staying in the front of the tank (others place was the back of the tank), maybe slightly paler, suddenly resting on the substrate, on the leaves near the surface, gasping for air, bending to the side. I did an emergency 50% water change, water of a similar temp, not same. By the next day, the fish was dead. I didn't notice any symptoms prior, the fish was active, interactive, eating, pooping normally.

I wonder for how long should I watch the other gourami, if it is worth obtaining a second one at some point (I wanted a pair and try my hand at breeding them) and if I am not stressing the remaining gourami by leaving it alone in the tank.

The symptoms you describe suggest an internal problem and probably internal organ failure. This can be caused by various diseases (viruses, bacteria) or the fish simply had bad genetics and had organ failure. Having said this, it is possible the fish has Fish Tuberculosis (TB), which is an internal bacterial infection that is common in Asian fish farms and in most pet shops around the world.

Fish TB (Mycobacteria species) grow slowly inside a fish's body in one or more organs. Over a period of months or even years (depending on water temperature and size of fish), the bacteria build up in numbers and produce a granuloma. This is basically a ball of bacteria and can develop in the organs, muscle or skin, but usually in the organs. Eventually the bacteria eat their way through an organ and the fish has internal organ failure. The fish will be fine and acting completely normally one day, and the following day they are usually pale, quite often bloated, breathing heavily near the surface or filter outlet, and die within 24 hours of showing these symptoms. A lot of fish will do a stringy white poop and they don't eat.

There's no cure for Fish TB or internal organ failure and any fish showing these symptoms should be euthanised asap because they are in pain. The heavy breathing and curved body are signs of fish in pain.

If you send the dead fish off to a fish health vet, they can do a necropsy (animal autopsy) on the body and might be able to confirm TB or something else. But that will cost a bit of money. Most people just accept the bacteria (disease) is in the fish and add more fish a few weeks later.

The problem with Fish TB is that it comes from most Asian fish farms and that is where 90% of common aquarium fishes come from. It is found in most pet shop tanks as well as fish quarantine facilities and importer's tanks. You can't tell if the fish have the infection until they show symptoms and by then it's too late. You can't treat the infection any way so your basically screwed. Some people will say you can treat it but I was unable to save any of my fish when they had it and ended up euthanising everything I had and gave up keeping freshwater fish. When my fish had it I was working with a fish vet, a normal vet who had experience with all animals including fish, a fish health lab and a number of scientists and researchers. Numerous medications were suggested and most dismissed due to being unable to get them or they had been proven as ineffective previously. Some were tried but nothing helped.

If you want to try breeding the fish, wait a month and get some more fish and let them pair off and breed.

Make sure you wash your hands with warm soapy water after working in an aquarium. Fish TB can cause a localised infection in people if the person has an open wound (cut or scratch) on their skin and they get contaminated water on the wound. Most healthy people don't get infected and it is more commonly seen in older fish keepers or people with a weakened immune system. If you have any open wounds on your hands or arms, avoid putting them in the aquarium until the wounds have healed, or wear a pair of rubber gloves to stop the water coming in contact with your skin.

If you develop any small sores on your hands or arms and they don't heal up normally and are still unhealed after a couple of weeks, tell your doctor your fish might have Fish TB and get them to take a swab of the sore and send it off for culturing. The doctor will probably try to put you on antibiotics in the mean time but you should avoid that and wait to get the results back. If you do have a Fish TB infection, you need specific antibiotics to treat it and if you start taking any antibiotics without knowing what strain you are dealing with, you simply increase the risk of it becoming drug resistant and incurable. So get the doctor to swab and send the sample off for culturing, wait for the results, then take the appropriate medication. If it is Mycobacteria, it won't grow much over a week and you should get the test results during that time and be able to treat it properly the first time.

 

[Beastije]

Thanks, as a long term fish keeper I wash my hands before putting them in the tank and after and I avoid if I have open wounds. I also read you are supposed to inform your doctors you are a fish keeper just in case so that they can recognize the problems (like tb, but also pneumonia?) sooner. Luckily so far I havent had any issues.
Interestigly I also read an article where people that feed microworms/walterworms by hand develop deep crevices in the fingers and basically they cause their own fungal/bacterial infections by dipping their fingers in a yeast environment. I use wet brush or a q-tip to prevent skin and also cause...worms?

Since we are at this topic, do you guys use any hand cream that you know is nonharmful to fish? Due to the constant washing and wetting my hands are super dry and I am afraid of using cream on days where I want to later maybe stick my hands to the tank.