Lost my dwarf gourami. What's going on here?

A

Aynjul

AC Members
Jun 27, 2006
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Odessa, Texas USA
skyye.hardwiredpc.com
I went to feed my fish tonight and found my dwarf gourami laying on the bottom of the tank dead. I had checked on them earlier and everyone looked fine. So I was unsure what the problem could be. I did all my water tests (liquid kind) and they came out as follows:

Ammonia 0ppm
Nitrite 0ppm
Nitrate 2ppm
pH 7.8

Its a 55 gallon tank with plastic plants that was set up around the first of July. It had "cycled."

Other fish in the tank are:

3 Zebra danios
6 tiger barbs
4 angelicus loaches

I'm pretty sure it wasn't the barbs pestering the gourami. They chased him a few times when I first added them but hadn't messed with him since.

I'm really anxious to figure out the problem and solve it before I lose anymore fish. I love all my fish but I'd especially hate to lose my loaches as they were $20 a pop.

Any ideas of what the problem could be and/or what I should do to make sure I don't lose any more?
 
It's hard to say without any desription of the fish. Nothing abnormal on it? Many people have problems with dwarf gouramis. They just dont seem to be a very hardy fish. How long did you have it? what was its normal behavior like? (did it hang near the top, bottom? how did it interact with other fish? Did you notice it breathing hard? swollen at all?) any other info you could prvide would be helpful.
 
He didn't appear to have anything wrong with him physically. No torn fins. No ich. He even kept his pretty blue color. I had him for a little over 2 months. He normally swam back and forth across the back of the tank at just above the mid level. Sometime he'd sit on the bottom back behind some plants to rest.

When I added the tiger barbs about 2 weeks ago they did chase him a few times but after that they never bothered him.
 
Firstly I've found sometimes fish just die for no apparent reason (maybe because of bad genes, hidden illnesses/parasites, sensitive to an obscure chemical, stress etc etc etc). I had a dwarf gourmi that died within about 2 months too, with no apparent problem. All the other fish he was with never got sick.

The only thing I could think of was, what is your temp? I'd keep an eye on our other fish but IMO I'd say it's a one off.
 
Aynjul said:
He didn't appear to have anything wrong with him physically. No torn fins. No ich. He even kept his pretty blue color.
Click to expand...

Ah-ha... An all blue Dward Gourami, eh? Some people say it's because of the way they are bred, but the all blue and the red/orange strains seem to be more fragile than a regular old DG. A lot of others have had problems with them dying for no apparent reason.

You have 6 Tiger Barbs, so chances are they didn't harass the little guy too much, that tends to be more of a problem when yu have less than six.

DG's can be shy, so I wouldn't think of the hiding behavior as abnormal. And your parameters look great.
 
Do you live somewhere cold? Dwarf gouramis are actually sort of sensitive to sudden temperature changes so you have to take some care with them. If the air is too cold it could shock them when they go up to breathe. For this reason I add warm water from the tap + 1/4th RO so when I do water changes it doesn't stress them out.

Also check your heater, some heaters tend to fluctuate the temperature which is kind of bad.

Yeah, I'd stay away from the neon + flame gouramis, they're a little fragile from all the inbreeding. The regular dwarf gouramis seem to be pretty hardy though. In any case the regular dwarf gouramis are pretty nicely colored as it is.
 
Same Problem with Dwarf Gouramis

I have given up on Dwarf gouramis. I lost four (purchased from three different stores). They all started out the same way. They swam, pretty much constantly, back and forth across the front or back glass. They did that for about one month. So in each case I thought they were going to make it. However, the behavior changed to occasionally laying on the bottom. One died like yours Aynjul. His second month in the tank was spent mostly on the bottom; then one morning I found him dead. The other three spent their second month alive mostly on the bottom, then the red sores would show up. Month three was spent in the hospital tank with various medications (recommended by people on this and other forums) to no avail.

So now I believe the first month hyper behavior was caused by hormones (or something similar) that the breeders give to make the fish appealing in the fish store.
 
i think it was the tiger barbs. you dont know that they were not harassing him the entire time, because i take it you do not sit in front of your tank and watch it 24/7. they couldve been chasing him while you were eating dinner or outside or on the computer, and IME only 6 tiger barbs is not enough to keep the agression towards other fish down, you'll need 12 or more to keep them away from the other fish, and to spread out the agression more, for the littlesest one is bound to get picked on. anyway, you really shouldnt have gouramis with tiger barbs because they have the long anal fins, and tiger barbs love to nip fins.
 
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