Paradise Fish!

[CPQ]

Hi, I've got a paradise fish in about a 40ish gal tank and recently she's been acting really strangely.
She's always been really active but the last week-ish she's started hiding away in the plants in a particular part of the tank and just sitting there. A couple of days after I first noticed, she started sitting on the bottom of the tank!!!! I've put some 'tetra general tonic' in and she's not sitting on the bottom anymore but she's still really quiet!

Another reason I'm worried is that I had a similar thing with a black molly a few weeks ago and she, unfortunately, died! but i still dont know why! in this case, the molly got one whitey blue patch near her gill which swole up (to the extent that her scales were raised). I put some of the general tonic in then and the swelling and white patch went but then I found her sitting on the substrate a while later! She died a few days after that!

Does anyone know what might be affecting my fish? All the others seem fine (so far!!!).

water parameters are fine - ammonia and nitrite zero. Havn't checked nitrate recently but there wasn't a problem with it when the molly was sick and I've been doing 20% weekly water changes (and have lots of plants etc). oh and the ph is slightly over 7.

Any help would be appreciated - the paradise fish was the first fish i ever had and she's been through A LOT and survived it so i really dont want to lose her over this!!

Thanks

 

[CPQ]

anyone??

 

[stang1]

What other fish do you have in the tank?

 

[CPQ]

erm - 1 male and 1 female gourami (male is a kisser and female is a 3-spot - and i recently moved a male honey gourami out),
5 tiger barbs,
2 cherry barbs,
6 neon tetras,
1 molly,
a few platys,
1 plec,
1 ruby shark (but he's not aggressive in the least - he keeps himself to himself)

And i recently moved a young CAE out (he wasn't particularly aggressive but I thought it was better to move him before he got aggressive) - i initially thought it might have been that the CAE was scaring her into hiding or had been sucking on her but she's not any more lively since he's gone!

Any ideas would be great - I just can't find any signs of illness and can't think what else could be wrong!

Thanks

 

[-germ-]

Have you observed the paradise fish being chased by any of the other fish in the tank?
Particularly the other anabantids?

 

[CPQ]

no - the only thing i observed if anything was her chasing them. she was kind of the dominant one!

She has started coming out a bit more - but dashes away into the plants again for no apparent reason after about a minute!