My Gourami Keeps Attacking The Thermometer!

[Rhonda5246]

I just bought a red and a blue Gouramis at Pet Smart this evening, and they told me they are one of the most passive fish there is??!! Now im afraid for all my other fish i just put them in the tank with, but thanking God I put them in my tank with my larger fish and not the tank with the smaller ones! I have them in a 30 gallon tank with some goldfish, and upside down catfish, my six-year-old suckerfish, a couple black moor’s, a few mollys, 3 glass fish, and a few others i dont know the names of. My tank is far from overcrowded, and when I put them in they just seem to flow around the top of the water like they were higher something LOL. The only thing that really startled me, was the red one was at the back of the tank near the bottom behind some plants, and all of the sudden he shot up out of nowhere it seemed, and swam straight for me, stopping right before he hit the glass, staring me straight in the face! I was taking a back buy this, and he just stayed there looking at me for a few seconds, and then slowly sauntered off again, But I was certainly rethinking what the employee at Petsmart had told me! Passive or not, They seem to be smart little buggers, and after reading your posts I’m on most fearful for the rest of my fish in my tank! Why do they sell fish like this when it is aggressive and pass them off as passive and for beginners? I’ll be heartbroken if they attack any of my other fish, and to think I almost felt sorry for them and Nearly put them into my tank with my small fish! I’m not at home right now I’m at work, but I almost want to go home and check on my fish now! I do not have an aggressive tank, should I take them back? Are all of them aggressive? Thanks advance for any help you can provide!

 

[DoubleDutch]

DG's aren't passive fish or sure.
These fish are one of the fish that are triggered by higher temps to get in matingmood (= agression in most cases).
Besides the dreadful Dwarf Gourami Disease running around the higher temp worns them out cause they're constantly in this state.
I'd never keep two males in a relatively small tanks and I'd keep them cooler than often advised.

To be honest I wished there was an importban on these beautiful fish to save the species from the viral disease they catch in Asia. But as always replacement of dead fish brings profits (that's all what counts in the trade).

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[Rhonda5246]

Thank you for the information! I’m having a really hard time trying to tell the sex of them, And do you don’t seem to be causing any problems so far, I’ve got one on one into the tank and one on the other and they both just like to stay near the top of the water and I’m not sure if they are staring out of the tank or at the reflections in the glass, but this seems to be where they’re most happiest! My tank is in around 77°, but all the fish in age have be subjected to both higher and cooler temperatures, due to a malfunctioning heater they quickly sorted out, but what temperature do you suggest would be the safest for the rest of my fish, and cool enough to keep them from matingmood?
For my second question and newest concern... What is this dwarf gourami disease? What are the symptoms, and how can I tell if my fish have it? Can it be passed to my other fish? Well, I feel like I’ve gotten in Way over my head here, and all I wanted was a couple pretty fish! I’m surprised, usually the staff are pretty good at recommending fish, but from the sounds of it, they were way off the chart with these two! Thanks again for any and all information you guys can share with me, it is very much appreciated!

One last question, I had the white fuzz on one of my mollies, and I treated the tank with this stuff that helps cure a lot of fish diseases ( it turned we take water completely green). It did cure my fish, although one who didn’t have the white fuzz died, Not sure what from, but after I got the water clearer I noticed a big white nasty spot above the eye of one of my glass fish. Hoping there was still enough of the medicine in the water, I just left him and didn’t do any water changes hoping to preserve what meds were left in the water, and his eye did eventually clear up. Now last night I noticed two white spots in the tail fins of my white molly, and a chunk is missing, broken off fron where the white spot is. Is this still the same disease in my tank, or something new? Fin rot, I thought possibly, But the tail isnt all jagged, just the one chunk missing stemming from the white spot. Because the fish is white, it could have other spots I can’t see, I just don’t know? Should I separate the white molly and medicate her on her own? Salt tx? Anything helpful in this department would also be much appreciated thank you!

 

[Colin_T]

If you post a picture of the gouramis we can tell you what sex they are. Females are normally silver and males have colour. However, in the coral blue dwarf gourami, males & females are both blue.

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All gouramis but mainly dwarf gouramis (Trichogaster lalius) and their colour varieties can carry a stress virus called the Iridovirus. There is no way of telling if the fish has the virus except to kill it and culture it in a lab and that doesn't help you or the fish. It is carried by dwarf gouramis that come from certain fish farms in Asia and can be spread to any fish via contaminated water or if a healthy fish eats a dead fish that had the virus.

There is no cure for the virus and the best thing to do is try to keep the fish in good conditions and feed them a varied diet so they don't get stressed and the virus doesn't take off and make the fish sick. It's a bit like the herpes virus that people carry, it remains dormant unless you get run down or stressed out and then it flares up. However, with the Iridovirus it does lots of damage to internal organs and causes sores to appear on the body, which become infected with bacteria and the fish usually dies.

If you can get locally bred dwarf gouramis they are usually free of the virus. Most other species of gourami are free of the virus but if they have been in a tank that had sick dwarf gouramis in (at any time), then they could have contracted the virus.

In Australia, all dwarf gouramis that come into the country need to have a certificate from a vet saying the fish are free of the Iridovirus. The fish are then quarantined in holding facilities for 1 month before being made available to shops. This normally guarantees fish that are free of the virus but not always. There have been a number of false reports made by vets in Asia claiming the fish were disease free when in fact the fish had the virus.

In other countries there are no quarantine restrictions or vet certificates required to import the fish and it then falls onto the importer to try and get fish from a safe source. And that is not always easy to do.

Basically, if you have dwarf gouramis there is a chance the Iridovirus is in the tank, and short of killing everything and sterilising the tank, it is there for good. Even if you do kill the fish and sterilise the tank, there is no guarantee that the local pet shop hasn't spread the virus around all their tanks by using nets in different tanks and moving fish around. The best thing to do is try and avoid buying them. And if you already have them, try to keep them healthy and happy and hope for the best.

And if that doesn't scare you enough, there is also TB but I will leave that for another time

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Post a picture of any sick fish so we can see the spots and dots.

Mollies and glass fish (aka glass chanda) need hard alkaline water (GH above 250ppm and pH above 7.0). If you have soft water the mollies won't do as well. If you can test the general hardness (GH) and pH of the tank it would help. If you don't have a GH test kit, take a glass full of tank water to the shop and ask them to test it for you. Write the results down, in numbers, when they do the test. The test might be in ppm or dgh. Make sure you ask the shop which one it is.

You can sometimes find the GH on your water company's website or by phoning them and asking what it is.