Can anyone help me with this? I am pretty new at keeping fish. I have a 29 gal tank with artificial plants. Up until recently I had one dwarf gourami, 4 coreys, 6 rummy nosed tetras, 7 glowlight tetras, 6 grown platies, 2 baby platies, and 12 baby mollies. It's a long story on the baby mollies...I sold the 4 parents. Also 1 snail and 12 japonica shrimp. My problem is that several days ago I noticed a sick looking rummy....it hovered in one spot and did not want to eat. It died the next day. Two days later another rummy died...found it in the morning. Now one of the glowlights is hovering and it appears like it's gasping for air. The Gourami has white bumps on its body but not ich....just large white bumps. I spoke with the fish store and they suggested I probably have a parasite and should treat it with aquarium salt...1 tablespoon for each 5 gallons. It was also suggested to me that probably I will lose the shrimp. Does anyone have any suggestion or advice that I am doing the right thing? I don't want to lose any more fish. Thanks.
what's happening to my fish?
- Thread starter capricorn
- Start date
Well, #1 stop adding the salt. You should find out what the "disease" or problem is before you medicate. This will ensure that you are in fact treating the right disease with the right meds. Adding random medications that you think are the right ones will just stress the other healthy fish out. What are you parameters a.k.a ammonia, nitrates and nitrites. Was this tank cycled or did you just set it up and put the fish in a few days later? Do you do water changes? How much and how often?? The white bumps on the gourami could be a fungus...do they look cottony or fuzzy? Fungus is caused when a wound (big or small) gets infected and the water quality is poor. The fish may be gasping because ammonia levels are high in the tank. Also, what kind of filtration do you have? I hope its some pretty decent filtration as your tank is quite full at the moment. More info is needed before you can get all the answers you're looking for. Hopefully someone else can chime in too. 
IMO you are overstocked,which is probably why the fish where hovering at surface,trying to get air,and rummys are a fairly sensetive to water conditions,so its not suprising the rummy went first.. the water params would make it easier to help you.....
my tank is a 29 gal eclipse with 3 stage filtration with a flow rate of 200 gph. It has an eclipse filter cartridge with activated carbon and a bio wheel. The water always looks good. I change about 1/3 of the tank water every week. This tank was cycled for 6 weeks beginning in January before any fish were placed. The parameters are good with a ph of 7.4 constant since january, nitrites have been level at 0.05 or less, and ammonia levels of 0.25 or less since I started up. For the most part since I started I have had no problems at all with the tank until I added 4 full grown lyretail mollies about a month ago. Then it seemed the tank got very busy which upset all the other fish. One of the mollies was already pregnant and had a batch of about a dozen babies. I returned the adults to the fish store but have kept the babies until they are grown enough to return to the fish store. Shortly after returning the adult mollies, the tank got ich which I treated and seemed to get rid of. Then I added shrimp to eat up some of the algae. Shortly after that this other problem showed up. I have lost 2 rummy nosed tetra and another looks listless and gasps all the time. Also a glowlight tetra is doing the same. I do not see any ich on the fish. I do see what looks like several raised bumps on my gourami that seem almost like bleached areas. I spoke with a fellow at my fish store. He is a supposed expert at this. He suggested the problem is a parasite and suggested I treat it with aquarium salt at 1 tablespoon per every five gallons which I have done since. Nothing seems to be happening in the past 36 hours since. The gourami still has the bumps, the two tetras still look poorly. He suggested I may lose my dozen or so shrimp but that is the risk I have to take he says.
Carbon filtration should really be changed every two weeks, I put lava rock in mine instead of the carbon packets. As far as the levels in your tank nitrite and ammonia need to be 0ppm, so you might want to start with a water change. It is really hard to tell what is wrong with the gourami without pics, can you post some? Salt is an effective treatment for ich but it isn't at the level that you are using. The appropriate levels of salt to treat ich is two teaspoons per gal. I agree with erin14 Adding salt before you know that what your fish have can be treated by salt can actually put your fish under unnecessary stress. good luck
I might add to my previous note, I do have air stone in the tank so there is good oxygen levels. I think I will try a 1/3 or so water change and see what that does.
thank you every one for your input. I think you are right about the ammonia levels. should be zero but it has been running at 0.25 for the past two weeks. I have done a water change and will do another every 2 days until I get it down to zero. thanks again. I willtry and get a pic of the gourami posted in the next few days (after my wife shows me how to do it!!!!) thanks again.