Gourami's dying one by one

[Blasst]

Found this site after much searching. Two months ago went from a 10g tank to a 20g. Had 2 blue gourami's, and 3 red eyed tetras in the 10g for a couple of years with no problems. Added 1 more blue gourami, and 3 red? gouramis, plus a couple of shrimp. The shrimp died withing 3 weeks. About this time is when the behavior of the fish changed from hanging out on the bottom most of the time, to ALL of them clustering together on the top. I knew something was up. Had the water tested several times, and came back okay each time. I had started using the lamp for 8-10 hours a day, from hardly ever with the 10 gallon tank. We were gettting a "orangish" film on everything in the tank. Algae?

Some of the fish started growing "black whiskers" on them. Parasites? Bottom line is they have all been dying off one by one now, and we are down to two fish today. Very sad. The vertical columns are plant, the horizontal lines on the fish is what I'm showing you. Can someone offer some ideas to a novice?

 

[Ulan]

The point that the fish moved from the bottom to the top of the tank speaks for a lack of oxygen. This may either be due to a real lack of oxygen in the tank (not enough water movement?) or due to parasites in the gills or, finally, due to ammonia or nitrite in the water. Those worms look like parasites, but here someone with more experience with these things might chime in. I'm not sure whether it's the original problem, though. From the sequence of what happened, there must have been some change at the bottom of the tank first.

What kind of substrate did you have, and what kind of filtration did you use? I take it that you didn't have your own test kit? Did the LFS (or whoever tested the water) use a nitrite test?

 

[jm1212]

it looks like fin rot, which is caused by bad water conditions (i.e hig ammoina/ nitrite or both).

the gouramis probably fought with each other and the one that lost dies from its wounds. the pic looks alot like what gouramis look like after they fight.

it doesnt sound like you cycled the tank, and thet could be a factor, and it looks like external parasites, like achor worm, but i haveny seen any black anchor worms before.