Darn it, sick gourami--diagnosis?

Lupin said:
My eyes may be fooling me but the scales on the rear part appear to be sticking out.:confused: It looks like bloat to me. What do you feed them?

By the way, your gourami looks like a Colisa sota to me. Epsom salts may help.
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OT: Lupin, I thought this was a Colisa chuna?
 
Blueiz said:
It looks like bloat to me as well, however it could be constipation causinghim to be swollen. Try feeding him some peas. One thing to note if you are feeding freeze dried foods, let them rehydrate before feeding them to your fish..:)
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I never knew you should re-hydrate dehydrated food before feeding. Thanks I guess we do learn something new everyday:)
 
He's still alive this morning. I'll try some peas first, and an epsom salt bath if that doesn't work.
Thanks for the tip on rehydrating food. These bloodworms I just fed him a few days ago, I dangled over the water dry, and let him come get them.
 
Well, I tried the epsom salt bath, but the poor guy was gone when I got home from work today.
Looking back at my old post from March when the first of this pair of gouramis died, the symptoms and progression of the illness are exactly the same--except that this time I noticed the fish was sick and QT-d him the night before the day he died instead of the morning of the day he died.
I don't believe it was constipation. I believe it was either an internal bacterial problem, or something (like cancer?) that this entire batch of gouramis had, maybe related to the hormones they use on these fish to make them all male.
I believe the problem was limited to the gouramis, but nonetheless I'll now be fretting while I watch over my other fish.
 
Leah, I just came across this post while doing a search of the forums on gourami compatability and although it is an older thread, I want to make a few comments.

I am very sorry for this (and your previous) losses. Your gourami's case was 'dropsy', a.k.a. 'bloat'. It is edema (fluid retention) of the specimen due and is very difficult to treat/resolve once it manifests. In the overwhelming majority of cases, the cause of this symptom in an underlying bacterial disease. The 'pineconing' effect seen in your photo looking down on the fish is very characteristic of more advanced cases.

When you see this case again (hopefully never!), do not waste time deliberating over the possiblity of something this dramatic being constipation; I see this gastrointestinal malady suggested far too often for cases where an underlying disease pathology is clearly present and requiring immediate treatment. As mentioned, even with treament the edema and advanced disease progression makes recovery difficult.

Epsom salt has little legitimate use for the therapeutic treatment of fish specimens, IMO... the constipated betta folks might disagree with me but that's OK LOL. Magnesium sulfate is great to raise the GH (general hardness) of aquariums (very handy for those cichlid tanks :grinyes:) and that's about it. In fact, the osmotic imbalance created by such a bath can be extremely traumatic for the specimen (even with underlying edema) and futher contribute to demise; it can actually promote water retention in certain cases. The real goal is to treat the underlying infection, not the symptom (i.e. swelling).

In general, the advice of, "Just add ______ salt to your aquarium" is grossly over-advised. Salt addition has great use for certain conditions (including the treatment of Ichthyophthirius (a.k.a. 'ich') along with an increase in temperature, but please take any advice for adding salt to the aquarium with a 'grain of salt' :D
 
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