Hey everyone I'm fairly new to the forum. I've been having issues with my 3 moonlight gouramis. They are about 4-5 inches long. In the past I had sexed them as 2 males and 1 female, which I know is not ideal but they were clearance fish I snagged for a very good price and I haven't been able to find Moonlight gourami locally that I've wanted to put in my tank (very large size difference, expensive for their size, or sickly). I have a 60 gallon which has been running since Feb. I do regular 50% weekly water changes. I run a Penguin rated for 70 gallon, and a HOT Magnum. My current water parameters are 78 degrees, Ammonia at 0 ppm, Nitrate <20 ppm, Nitrite 0 ppm, Chlorine 0, Hardness (GH) 100 ppm, Alkalinity (KH) 80 ppm, pH 7.0. I regularly dose with aquarium salt. This tank also contains pictus cats, tiger barbs, giant danios, a raphael catfish, a golden algae eater, and angelfish.
I went on vacation about 3 weeks ago and this is where I got into problems. I haven't had any issues with my tank aside from one tiger barb with ich several months ago. I treated with the heat and salt method. Before vacation, I skipped my huge weekly water change and put my auto feeder on the tank. I enlisted a friend to come over and keep an eye on everyone and test my water. She has tanks of her own, and made comments to me that my fish were fat, mainly the pictus cats, and that one moonlight seemed chunky. Upon my return, I noticed the fat moonlight, as well as my other male moonlight seemed thin and swimming oddly. I had set the auto feeder wrong and overfed. Everything tested fine, with the nitrates raised to about 30 ppm, which was the only thing unusual. I did my regular water change, and cleaned up the gravel.
Onto the gouramis; The larger "male" (I'm not so sure about their sexes anymore) is severely bloated. He swims normally, is active and eating, but has lost his red coloration on his feelers. The smaller "male" is now quite thin and seems struggling to swim. All 3 fish have a few small bumps which appear as small scrapes or pimple type issues. I talked to the aquatics manager at work and she suggested I was doing too many water changes :bs:. I felt like I only got problems when I missed a normal water change. She thought I might be facing a bacterial infection of some sort, so I got some MelaFix and treated for a week and saw improvements. Their pimple like dots seemed to heal. In the meantime, fat gourami is fatter, and thin gourami seems almost transparent and is lacking any sort of body mass to him! When I was doing my normal testing earlier this week, I noticed my pH had dropped to about 6.2. I did a large 50-60% water change and dosed with Seachem's Neutral Regulator. The next day my pH was about 6.8, so I did a half dose for good measure. I thought this might be all related to the pH, but then I did more research on the Moonlight Gourami and they actually like their water slightly acidic.
So now I'm trying to figure out if this fat fish is just fat, and if thin fish just got malnourished and bullied while I was away and is now weak and slower at getting food, or if I have something more serious going on. All my other fish are fine. Opinions?
I went on vacation about 3 weeks ago and this is where I got into problems. I haven't had any issues with my tank aside from one tiger barb with ich several months ago. I treated with the heat and salt method. Before vacation, I skipped my huge weekly water change and put my auto feeder on the tank. I enlisted a friend to come over and keep an eye on everyone and test my water. She has tanks of her own, and made comments to me that my fish were fat, mainly the pictus cats, and that one moonlight seemed chunky. Upon my return, I noticed the fat moonlight, as well as my other male moonlight seemed thin and swimming oddly. I had set the auto feeder wrong and overfed. Everything tested fine, with the nitrates raised to about 30 ppm, which was the only thing unusual. I did my regular water change, and cleaned up the gravel.
Onto the gouramis; The larger "male" (I'm not so sure about their sexes anymore) is severely bloated. He swims normally, is active and eating, but has lost his red coloration on his feelers. The smaller "male" is now quite thin and seems struggling to swim. All 3 fish have a few small bumps which appear as small scrapes or pimple type issues. I talked to the aquatics manager at work and she suggested I was doing too many water changes :bs:. I felt like I only got problems when I missed a normal water change. She thought I might be facing a bacterial infection of some sort, so I got some MelaFix and treated for a week and saw improvements. Their pimple like dots seemed to heal. In the meantime, fat gourami is fatter, and thin gourami seems almost transparent and is lacking any sort of body mass to him! When I was doing my normal testing earlier this week, I noticed my pH had dropped to about 6.2. I did a large 50-60% water change and dosed with Seachem's Neutral Regulator. The next day my pH was about 6.8, so I did a half dose for good measure. I thought this might be all related to the pH, but then I did more research on the Moonlight Gourami and they actually like their water slightly acidic.
So now I'm trying to figure out if this fat fish is just fat, and if thin fish just got malnourished and bullied while I was away and is now weak and slower at getting food, or if I have something more serious going on. All my other fish are fine. Opinions?
