dying pearl gouramis, any clues?

loaches r cool

loaches r cool

Snail Terminator
Feb 15, 2006
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Gahanna, Ohio
tristan.homelinux.net
Well, I have some bad news for my 240. I had 6 pearl gouramis in there for about 1-2 months and just this past week they have started dying on me. Three have passed and one looks like its ready to go. This seems to be something that happens quick, I've watched the tank everyday and no signs the pearls even look sick, yet when I come home from work there is a dead fish. I finally caught one that looks very sick and got a pic (sorry flash washed it out).

sickfish1.JPG


Sorry, but thats the best pic I was able to take at the time. There is a vertical line of sorts, behind the head (hard to tell in the pic), in which everything behind it has faded white. The side fin facing the camera is pointing out and frozen in the place, it doesnt move, On the opposite side the fin is moving normal.

I have other fish in the tank, and other than some recently introduced cardinal tetras (which I am thinking might be the culprit) there have been no deaths (BN plecos, SAEs, zebra loaches, roseline sharks) just the pearls. The cardinals I probably put in the tank to quickly out of quarantine to make room for other fish, but I did have a lot of the cardinals die - which I shrugged off since I have always heard they are overly sensitive to introducing in a new tank. Perhaps it wasnt just that and they were carrying something, IDK.

Just curious if anyone happens to know if pearls are overly susceptible to something in particular or if the pic is any help?

I'll get some water readings today when I get home and post em. Last I checked the only things out of norm were high nitrates and phosphates since I havent got my fertilizer dosing routine nailed down yet, not sure if pearls are more sensitive than most fish to these? But anything can happen in a weeks time so I'll get some fresh numbers as soon as I can.
 
Not sure. Do not suspect cardinals of causing the problem. IMO--Gouramis are less sensitive to nitrate and phosphate problems. Did you do a water change before problem??

Cardinals are sensitive to water-chem change so I always drip acclimate them. I have about 20 cardinals and about 10 neons in my tank (some are about 3+ years old). No deaths since introduced.
 
Well I suspect tomorrow I will have no pearls left. Down to one today, and despite it looking fine earlier, just now before the lights went off I saw it was hiding, and once I got a good look at it it showed similar characteristics to the other. Only this one had the front half of its face turn white and the rest of it look normal, kind of the opposite of the above.

Finally got around to doing a round of tests, nothing really any different than its been:

Ammonia - 0
Nitrite - 0
Nitrate - High, not sure since I cant really judge the API colors over 20, I'd guess 40-80.
Phosphate - High, not sure since my test goes only to 3ppm and it was a little darker, I did not have time to dilute the sample to get an accurate number.
GH - 8.5 ppm
KH - 2.5 ppm
TDS - 260 ppm (tap runs about 150)
Temp - 79*F
pH - peaks at 7.15 at night and 6.1 after co2 on full
02 - 8 ppm

Nitrates and phosphates high due to fertilizer dosing, not waste, BTW. Just trying to get a good dosing routine down and plants just arent uptaking as much as expected yet.

PWC about 10% daily

Tanker - I am starting to suspect the cardinals... I know they dont travel and acclimate well... but I did drip em for a couple hours, and its now 2-3 weeks later so acclimation shock should be over I'd think. The gouramis started dying I think at the beginning of the week. It appears they die within 24 hrs or so of showing any signs of distress, and they do show signs, in fact they look terribly sickly. I also had 3 more dead cardinals today along with the second to last pearl.

What would kill these guys so fast but not any of my other fish? More likely bacteria related or something else? I need to take the UV off my QT and put it on this one but I need to buy new fittings for the larger hoses, I have another UV but the bulb is burnt and been on backorder for two months :angryfire: Maybe tomorrow I can fire up the diatom, maybe that will be worth something.
 
WOW, I am not sure. Your nitrates are very high (if tested right), and phosphates but have not seen this to cause fish deaths--just discomfort.

Do not think diatom would help, may want to try some dacteria medicine and start up UV. Sorry, good luck. :(
 
40-80 is high, but not very high. The whitening sounds like columnaris to me, which has some very virulent strains which can kill in hours.
 
i would think it is the nitrates killing them,ive had pearls and tey are very sensitive to water conditions

and those are some pretty large swings in ph ya got goin on there....
 
the pH swings are pretty big, and while they may stress the gouramis and possibly harm the cardinals, i do not think the pH is responsible for the gouramis' physical symptoms. any damage from that would be internal. i think this might be something viral because of the way the bodies are "sectioned off". in humans viruses can sometimes affect only certain parts of the body (thinking of shingles/chicken pox virus here).
 
The pH swings are due to CO2 injection, so unless the belief that CO2 induced pH swings are not apparent to fish (because of no TDS changes) is wrong, then that shouldnt be an issue. Although high nitrates I am sure might be somewhat unpleasant to the fish, I do not think they would cause the gouramis start dying within a day or two time. And the loaches and roselines should be far more sensitive to nitrates I would think. Also, as I said, I cant really tell the levels so could even be as low as 20. I looked up columnaris, just not sure if the visual symptons fit. Virus, perhaps, IDK. Well, they are all gone, so guess I;m going to be watching the rest of the fish pretty closely and see what happens.
 
crazycanuck said:
i would think it is the nitrates killing them,ive had pearls and tey are very sensitive to water conditions

and those are some pretty large swings in ph ya got goin on there....
Click to expand...

Pearl gouramis, as well as most other anabantoids, are not sensitive to water quality. They have a lung-like organ called a labyrinth which they use to breath air when water conditions are poor.

In my experience, it looks to be something viral.

Also, the pH swing due to co2 injection is NOT harmful to fish as it doesn't change the acidity/alkalinity of the water.
 
might be columnaris . my pearls had it and dropped like flies. saddle like patch on the back and white film eating away at the lips...
 
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