Sick Gouramis

[TammyLiz]

55 US gallon tank with 5 three-spot gouramis
ammonia 0
nitrite barely registering
temp 80F
This tank was recently set up and is basically bare bottom now as I am waiting to finish with my planting until after my fish are well. The fish were transferred from a smaller tank along with the filter but a mini cycle happened anyways. That is almost done.

I noticed that one of the fish seemed to have developed whitespot a couple days ago. Three of them are flashing and all have clamped fins.
I put salt in their water and am trying to get the temp. up but my heater is not doing a good job because the room temperature is pretty low. So far it is still only 80F in there. I will be looking for a new heater tomorrow but may have to wait for one to be shipped because they don't always have those things in stock (seems dumb).
Another thing that is weird is one is doing this thing where it stops swimming and just floats and ever so slowly tips nose down and even if another fish comes up and pecks it on the side it doesn't move. It goes completely vertical and once I even saw it tip upside down. This behavior lasts for about ten seconds and then the fish swims away as if nothing happened. Could this be from the whitespot or is it a different problem?

 

[tttnjfttt]

the tipping could be from swim blader problems, and the first action in that is usually feeding either peas or daphnia. How much salt did you add in the water? (and heads up, i've heard not all plants like salt).

Is there any other signs of illness besides the white spot? Are the fish bloated, any signs of fungus, popeye, or the scales sticking out?

 

[TammyLiz]

the tipping could be from swim blader problems, and the first action in that is usually feeding either peas or daphnia. How much salt did you add in the water? (and heads up, i've heard not all plants like salt).

Is there any other signs of illness besides the white spot? Are the fish bloated, any signs of fungus, popeye, or the scales sticking out?

I will try the peas. It cant hurt. I don't notice any problems other than what I listed. I've had fish with swim bladder problems before and they usually floated to the surface and tried to swim down, this one just hovers at the same level and doesn't try to go anywhere.

BTW I moved the plants to an empty tank to treat seperately because my wisteria was very upset about the salt and overnight some leaves browned. Moving them wasn't a big deal since I don't have my substrate yet.

 

[Miss Dib Dabs]

What sexes are the gourami? I wouldn't personally use salt with the gourami either. It can upset them (stress them). You'd be better using a good ich med to treat them.
Is the gourami doing this a female? Is she rather round in the body? More than normal? It could be that you have a girl carrying alot of eggs showing willing to spawn. Although that seems unlikely in the circumstances anything is possible.
Hugs,
P.

 

[TammyLiz]

What sexes are the gourami? I wouldn't personally use salt with the gourami either. It can upset them (stress them). You'd be better using a good ich med to treat them.
Is the gourami doing this a female? Is she rather round in the body? More than normal? It could be that you have a girl carrying alot of eggs showing willing to spawn. Although that seems unlikely in the circumstances anything is possible.
Hugs,
P.

That is very interesting. I am not sure how big they have to be before they are ready to spawn, but I do suspect that this one is female. I have a thread in the gouramis section with pictures of them. The one with the strange behavior is the dark gold one, if you decide to look. It does look very round in the body, (much more than when the picture was taken) and I was wondering if it was from constipation but the roundness doesn't look lumpy, just round. The fish are about 2 1/2 inches long (6 cm.) and there is at least one male but it is an opaline.

Is it a problem if it is a female carrying eggs and no male willing to spawn with her? Or will she just reabsorb them? I have heard of fish dieing from this but am not sure if gouramis are likely to.

Thanks for the help.

Tammy

 

[seb_negrete]

my male dwarf gourami has been showing the exact same behaviour. he too had whitespot and i treated for it (had to treat for double the normal amount of time because the spots wouldn't go away). the Ich is gone now but for the last couple of days he has been doing the exact thing that you've described.
i had added salt to my tank while treating for Ich so maybe it's this that he's reacting to if they don't do well with salt as you say, Miss Dib Dabs.

i've just done a big water change to get the salt and meds out of the tank so i'm hoping that his condition will start to improve. i have to say though that, given his behaviour, the outlook seems bleak.

 

[TammyLiz]

My gourami seems fine now and I am in the middle of ich treatment. In fact, starting today, she is terrorizing everyone else in the tank! Hopefully yours will fare as well. Minus the aggression problems, though.

 

[seb_negrete]

actually mine seems to be doing well now too. at least in that his behaviour is back to normal. problem now is that he has a couple of little marks on his scales and i'm not quite sure what they are.
one thing i did that seemed to help turn his behaviour around is that i added a female gourami so that it wasn't only him and the danios in the tank.