Swordtails Attacking Dwarf Gourami

[jdcotr]

Hi,

I bought six fish for my 60L Biorb on Sunday and now have major problems with aggression in the tank. Being fairly new to all this I spoke to someone at the shop and bought the following fish on reccomendation: -

2 x blue dwarf gourami
2 x swordtail
2 x other fish I can't remember the name of (look like very small gourami's but are a vivid orage colour).

Anyway to cut a long story short everything was fine for the first 24 hours but after that the two swordtails started attacking the dwarf gourami. I got home from work on Tuesday evening and the female dwarf gourami was dead at the bottom of the tank. Now the remaining DG hides in a small pot constantly at the bottom of the tank and rarely moves. Every time he does come out he's instantly attacked. Strangely the two swordtails don't bother the orange fish at all.

I'm a bit confused as I was told all these fish were peacefull. I'm not too sure what I can do other than see if I can take some of the fish back to the shop.

Is anyone able to give any advice?

Thanks

Luke

 

[WILDER]

What are your water stats in ammonia, nitrite, nitrate and ph.
I would issolate the fish and if nothing wrong with it contact the lfs to see if they would take it back.
If a fish is ill other fish will attack it.

 

[GSD]

Did you cycle the tank before purchasing fish.

Bad water conditios can trigger aggression, as Wilder said weakened fish often get bullied. Dwarf gouramis are notorious for being prone to disease.
The other fish ould be honey gouramis, look like dwarf but smaller?

 

[jdcotr]

Thanks for the advice.

I did cycle the tank prior to adding any fish although the guy at the shop said I didn't need to bother with a testing kit. I might go and get one tomorrow and check the water? I added some biological filtration booster and water conditioner when I first added the water.

Maybe the dwarf gourami is sick as the female died off after only a couple of days.

The other fish are honey gourami's - thankyou!

 

[WILDER]

Did you do a fishless cycle where you keep adding ammonia.

 

[jdcotr]

I didn't add any amonia, no. I just added the biological filtration boost and then left it a week. It was fully setup with plants etc just without the fish.

The guy at the shop said that should be adequate but I'm beginning to think it wasn't! Does it sound like I'm getting bad advice from this shop?

 

[WILDER]

Yes you are getting bad advice.
I would test your water and get back to the board.

 

[CKutz]

on top of having cycling issues, your gourami probably will not ever get along. dwarf gourami don't really get along well with each other..they are kinda like bettas. i think the honey gourami are the same.
they are all individually good for your size tank, but not so much when combined.

for future reference, it seems there is a lot of people that have issues with livebearers such as mollys and swordtails and gouramis..seems like they just have some territorial thing butit usually gets worked out in a week or so.

just my opinion.

 

[jdcotr]

Hi, I picked up a testing kit yesterday and all the readings appear to be okay: -

NO3 - 10mg/l
NO2 - 0
GH - 4d
KH - 3d
PH - 6.4
CL2 - 0mg/l

I used Tetra Aquasafe and Nutrafin Cycle when I first set up the tank which says you can add fish immediately.

I spoke to the guy at the shop and he said the dwarf gourami are very shy so he sees no issues with it hiding in the pot all the time as long as it's feeding, which it is. The swordtails are still being aggressive today but the dwarf gourami usually heads out of his pot if hee see's me. The guy at the shop said to leave it a couple of weeks and if everything survives that long I could go back and get another female dwarf gourami for free.

I thought this may be a terratorial issue. It's really difficult with the biorb to get a decent amount of plants and ornamnets in as there's so little space at the bottom of the tank. It also affects the filtration if you have too much stuff in there as the media is part of the filtration system. I've been considering getting a larger tank and then each fish will have it's own space?

 

[WILDER]

Boirb are not very good tanks. They look nice and that's it. The filteration system not very good either.
I have kept gouramis and they don't hide away.
When a fisn hides for long periods there something wrong. Its stressed due to being bullied.
Stress causes the fish immune system to be weak causing desease.