One Armed Gourami

Tish Fank · May 21, 2009

not sure if this in the right place but i dont think its a real emergiency as the fish in questions seems happy and so does the rest of the community tank. but i was wondering if this has happened to anyone else,
i have a three spotted gourami and one of her feelers has fallen off or disapiered. at first it Kind of split into 2 like a split hair then totally vanished after a couple of days! i have not been too worried as she is eating plenty swimming aroud just fine and her coulers are still really vibrent. she hangs out with the other three spot gourami so i have not been too worried but should i be? water pereamiters are all good. just seems verry strainge!

Curiosity101 · May 21, 2009

Make sure there are no underlying factors such as aggression or disease that caused the feeler to split in the first place. If you can't see anything suspicious just keep the water as clean as possible and it should grow back quite soon.
If you want you could always dose with melafix to aid the regrowth. But be careful as it's not 100% compatible with some fish such as loaches and I think perhaps bettas.

markandhisfish · May 21, 2009

i had a pearl gourami that lost 1 in a fight. as long as there is no disease/infection present youve got nothing to worry about it will grow back all be it slowly. as long as there is no redness/ infection etc i wouldnt bother with meds just keep your water good and nature will do the rest

Tish Fank · May 21, 2009

it will really grow back?? i never knew that!! that is pretty amazing!
no there was nothing suspicious going on in the tank so thats why i have not been too tooo worried just intreagued if any one else has had a similar experience. ill keep the water changes quite regular then, any idea how long it might take to grow back?

markandhisfish · May 21, 2009

that 1 i couldnt tell you i re-homed mine a couple of weeks later so it didnt happen again ( i was just changing over to cichlids) but i do know it is quite slow. provided your usual weekly waterchnge etc keeps your water good its not really something that needs extra water changes ,

Curiosity101 · May 21, 2009

My girl grew hers back within a week with the addition of melafix. I wasn't trying to imply it was at all neccesary. But it's one of those things, if the OP happened to have some around, it certainly did seem to speed things up.

I do 100% agree with markandhisfish though, meds aren't not ACTUALLY necessary (Though I don't know how much I'd call melafix a med).

Goodygumdrops · May 21, 2009

One of my wee honeys lost a feeler couple of weeks back,no idea how it happened,it's almost back in now.Like the others said,just pay particular attention to keeping the water nice and clean.
On another tangent,I bought an angel a few weeks ago as he was the last one and I felt sorry for him,obviously almost starved to death (shaped like a 50p),and one of his ventrals looked almost like it had been cut off the break was so sharp.He's getting quite curvaceous now and the ventral is starting to grow,yey,much more slowly than the gourami though.