Mysterious White String And 2 Dead Gouramis

[arabballin]

Ok so i posted in the emergence section and no one helped me or gave me any real information but here is what happened.

I woke up this morning and saw a white string hanging from one of my gouramis and i looked and it was coming out from where the poop comes out. I watched it for a while and saw it would sit on the gravel go up for air and then come back down and sit on the gravel again. When it came up for air i decided to grab the white string and just pulled it off and it came off no problem and the gourami was a lot better and swimming happier.

I come a few hours later and my male gourami is dead and few hours after that my female is dead. I have one left and the one left is the one that had the white string.
They are trichogaster trichopterus and i wanna know what happened to my fish, more importantly if it will spread to my other fish.

Please help me, anything will help.

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

Sounds like tapeworm/internal parasites, you will need to treat the tank with an anti internal parasite medicine- there are various medicated foods you can use or meds like Levamisole.

 

[sylvia]

Tapeworms in fish?

I actualy suspect the white string was coincidental and just some poo It could have been a parasite but parasites don't normaly cause synchronised deaths!

Have you seen any other symptoms lately? Maybe bloating, red streaks on the body or fins, white or black edging to the fins, ulceration, white or black spots etc?
What other fish are in the tank and how many? What temperature is it at? What are your ammonia, nitrite and nitrate levels?
Were the three gouramies eating well before this? Did you notice any aggression between them? What sexes were they?
Have you had any other deaths recently?

The problem here is that two died so closely together. It could be some infection or parasite but I feel it may be something environmental instead.

 

[arabballin]

its a 30 gallon tank at 79 degrees

Stats:
Ammonia: 0
NitRITE:0
Nitrate:10 ppm

Tank mates:
6 tiger barbs
3 bosemani Rainbows (was 4)
2 black mollys

The tiger barbs wouldn't come close to the gouramis as they are still small(only about an 1 1/2 inches) while my gouramis were almost 4 inches. I had two females and one male, the male would harass the females very rarely and he never pursue them enough to kill them, and its the male that died first which is what made me wonder.
The only other death was a bosemani rainbow and i think that was my barbs that did that, as it was the only female bosemani and also the smallest fish in the tank.I must admit i made a mistake buying her but i had read one female would make the males flash their colors more. There eating habits were great they competed for food very well even with the smaller faster fish being around. I fed pellets and some flake, im still new so i didnt wanna deal with live and frozen food yet, but everything ive read told me they would be fine on these pellets.
Any other questions just let me know and ill tell u the answer.

 

[JamieH]

i've had an angel fish die the same way... only it had stringey white poo and stopped eating for some time... i treated with both an internal bacterial treatment... and an internal parasite - to no effect

 

[sylvia]

I honestly can't say what might have been wrong. How long ago did the boesmani die?

My only guess is that something stressed the gouramies in particular and oftentimes gouramies respond more obviously to pH fluctuations than other fish. I don't know though. I still think it can't have been parasitic or some kind of disease because they both died at the same time and all tree, by your description, seemed distresssed.

BTW, live and frozen foods are very easy to deal with - frozen are the same as anything else except that you need to put them in your freezer Tablets and flake are also fine but large quantities of 'dry' foods can cause constipation (though I'm not suggesting this was anything to do with your fish' deaths). Gouramies (and barbs) also enjoy blanched greens like zuchinni and mashed green peas (remove the shell, you don't need to cook them) are often welcomed. Cucumber is another veggie often enjoyed by aquarium fish but remove the skin (if it's organic then this is less of an issue) and weigh it down.

 

[arabballin]

I didnt know that. For some reason i thought frozen food was hard to deal with. I gave them some cucumber yesterday, but i forget to take off the skin i used a cheese grater to make it into nice small pieces and make it easier for them to eat. The LFS said all of his are healthy so maybe something did cause them stress. The bosemani died 3 days before but when i found it it had its eyes and pieces of its body eaten.

Thanks for all the advice, if you have anything else you think i should know i would really appreciate as i want to know all i can.