just lost a gourami...any suggestions on what happened?

[kimmers318]

I just lost my beautiful blue dwarf gourami, the only thing I can think of is possible dropsy, or internal bacteria. Here is the scenario....my blue and flame were purchased on 3-26, so we are looking at 4 weeks here, plenty of time for anything to have shown up that might have already been going on at time of purchase. The flame is still going strong. Sunday night I fell asleep early, when I woke up it was after 11pm and when I went to feed fish he didn't eat, just stayed in his favorite spot. Since this was a late feeding..my daughter had already turned tank lights off, figured he just didn't want to bother. He didn't eat at all Monday either that I saw, but not showing any other signs of illness....great color, still coming up for gulps of air, but only moving if bothered. Today he showed a LITTLE swelling in abdomen, and small area on face, but since he was bigger than the flame, not sure if it was actual swelling, or just his larger size when comparing to flame. Then he started laying down, but still moving around when bothered, still had great coloring, and still taking gulps of air. Within the last hour he just layed down and died, literally. He was originally put into a 29 gallon with a pair of kribs and a german ram who was too mean, so I moved both dwarfs to 20 gal separation tank to give them time to heal. I keep breeding platy's in 20 gal to keep it cycled, so when I have to separate a fish to allow it to heal from fin damage I am not concerned with the platy's...they are very gentle. I also put the 2 female german rams in the 20gal for the same reason 2 weeks ago.....my male beat them up. I ended up losing one of the females, figured it was from the male terrorizing it. Now it looks like there may possibly have been an illness in female german ram. Since we are looking at 2-4 weeks from time of purchase of any of the new fish, I suppose it is possible the rams brought it in, but if not, what else could have caused my dwarf to end up with an internal infection? I was getting ready to move my dwarfs to my 64 gallon community tank, but think I will wait for awhile now. How long should I give it to make sure the other dwarf or the ram aren't showing any signs of this illness before I can figure they are safe? And should I medicate the tank just in case or let time tell? I really hate adding chemicals to my tanks, so I am going to bow to the friends I have made here and take some of their expert advice into consideration! This is my first experience with a sick fish that wasn't from time of purchase! All of the other fish I have lost have only been at my house less than a week and most probably were sick when I got them. I checked water parameters..am 0 nitrite 0 nitrate 0, they had just had a vac and water change of 5 gallons last Friday.

[rollie]

do not think it was dropsy. could of been bacteria of some types. you should of treated him as soon as you see it. i think melafix and pimafix, may of work. i seen this many times before. could of been something wrong inside to. you should have some sea salt in your tank to. i would put 3 to 4 tablespoons in . it help them to not get sick. i have it in all of my tanks. i have the hosipal tank, set up for something like this. you might want to do the same.

[kimmers318]

Well, I understand it could have been some type of bacteria...but why so late in the game, and why haven't the other fish gotten sick? I did try some melafix this morning, but it was probably too late...and I quarantined him so that he was the only one treated. He was already in our "hospital" tank. I keep our breeding platy's in the 20gal all of the time to keep it cycled and remove fry as they are born to a separate 10 gal with sponge filter. It may sound cruel to you, but I only let the platy's breed so we have feeder fish....bad experience with store bought ones. They breed well and we know what they may have been exposed to. So, if the platy's are lost, it isn't like we are losing our favorite fish...they are there for a purpose...to keep tank cycled and to breed. I had put the dwarfs and the female rams in to allow them to heal from the fin nips they got from male ram, Demon. All had healed fine and were just waiting until the sparkling gourami's had a chance to become comfortable in 64 gal before I transferred them.
As for the salt...I am leery of doing that because I had put salt into my daughters tank when she had mollies and they all died within a couple of days! I have doc wellfish's aquarium salt. I have read on several sites that aquarium salt is good for most fish, but had a bad experience, and up until now my fish have done well without it. But to hopefully avoid any issues with the other dwarf and the female ram....I will give it a try. Are you aware of any fish that cannot tolerate salt in the aquarium, other than my dwarf puffer? I don't think dps like salt.

[rollie]

molly will live and breed in a salt water tank!! catfish and plec do not like salt. molly been catch as far as 8 miles out to sea!! most fish can take up to 5 tablespoons per gallon!!, and that incude catfish and plec. but 3 to 4 tablespoons is enought, for the whole tank. doc wellfish salt is very good salt. most puffer can take salt, but i had no infor on the dwarf puffer. i am just telling you what i do, and i have over 30 years in this hobby. but you decided ,what you should do.

[kimmers318]

As I said in my first post...I am going to bow to those of you that have much more experience than I do! It was just that a bad experience made me leery. I added 3 tbsp of aquarium salt to hopefully avoid any further illness. I dissolved it into tank water in separate container and slowly added to aquarium....the fish seemed to love it! I kept trying to add dissolved salt water slowly and they were chasing the doggone stuff all over the place. I also was aware that mollies are usually brackish...guess I shoulda mentioned that huh? But again, was still scared that I caused my daughters fish deaths! I will keep you informed as to how everything goes and pray that noone else gets sick! The only other question I have is do you add salt to the water when doing water changes? That is what I had done with the mollies...added 1 tbsp to the 5 gallons in the tank....added 1 tbsp to water change water, although I only changed 1 gal at the time. I usually now mix up 3 gal increments of water for changes, have a good system for getting water right temp, and the 3 gal bucket is easy for me to handle! If I am changing more water I just get another 3 gal ready to go right away.
Keep me on the right track Rollie!

[rollie]

salt do not leave the tank. but you do take some out when you do the water changing. you should do the 10 to 15%, water changed the week. every couple of mouths, maybe add a 1/5 teaspoons of salt. in my 55 tanks, i changed 50 gallon of water per day. but you do not need to do that. i here to help and hope you have no more problems.

[DemonShark]

hopefully she wont

[kimmers318]

Are you saying don't add salt to water being used for water changes? Just add a little every couple of months? And by 1/5, are you saying 1 fifth of a teaspoon of salt every couple of months, or 1 to 5 teaspoons? I added 3 tablespoons to 20 gal, and if this works I will keep it up, just don't want to add too much. I will do more research on my own tomorrow.
Thanks for the help Rollie...I was hoping not to need it quite so soon after making friends here, but alas, sometimes shit happens!

[rollie]

1 fifth of a teaspoon of salt ever couple of months. good fish books to have are: any book worte by dr. herbert r. arelrod, dr. william t. innes, and gina sandford . i like to help!! that my downfall.