Blue Gourami tail-walking?

[Guest]

I have a blue gourami in a ten gallon tank with a flame gourami. I use the mini eco-aqualizer for filtration and have a heater set at 88 degrees. The blue gourami has recently been spending a lot of time in a somewhat vertical position with its head towards the surface of the water, going up to the surface now and then. I know the latter is not strange behavior for gouramis, but I'm not so sure about the former. Is this what's called tail-walking? It seems to be swimming as if its tail is weighing it down, though it looks fine when it moves quickly.

Thanks for your help.

 

[greenmaji]

Why so hot? and it sounds like it could be swim blater problems if its not having troble breathing in your hot tank.. the O2 goes down when the heat goes up.. you need to have alot of airation with a hot tank like that.. Im assuming your treating the tank for ich and if your not you need to slowly lower the temperature to about 80 degrees.. like 1 to 2 degrees a day untill you get down to 80..

 

[Toirtis]

My first concern is the temperature, too....the temp can affect the fish both directly and indirectly (by severely lowering the concentration of dissolved gasses in the water)....I would drop the temp by 10ºF over the next couple of days and see how that affects things.

 

[wabyrd]

I have a blue gourami in a ten gallon tank with a flame gourami.

Ditto the heat issue. However, after having multiple bad experiences with the power blue and flame type gouramis, I did some research. What the books don't tell you is that the gourami is inbred like you would not believe. The inbreeding makes them unusually susceptible to disease. The opalines are not quite as inbred, but still succeptible to disease. Don't feel too bad about this happening. It's just the fish. I have to admit that it is a little stressful to try and figure out why only one fish (or one species) is so sick when the rest of the tank is fine.