Honey Gouramis keep dying

The friendliest place on the web for anyone with an interest in aquariums or fish keeping!
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.

MissJay

Aquarium Advice Apprentice
Joined
Mar 17, 2018
Messages
12
Location
Minnesota
Hello! I have bought about 8 Honey gouramis over the past 2 years, from the same store, and they have all died fairly mysteriously. The oldest one survived 6 months.

I have a 30 gallon community tank. It was fishlessly cycled 2 years ago, it’s heavily planted, has proper filtration, and no other fish are having problems. I have 9 corycats, 7 flame tetras, 3 platies, 2 amano shrimp, and 2 nerite snails. 30% water changes are done weekly.

The fish usually show signs of odd abdominal bumps, sometimes slight bloating. Two have died from straight dropsy. They usually start floating near the bottom, until they eventually sit at the bottom. They try to eat. Some of them have issues with their swim bladder. When a fish starts acting weird, I put them in a 10 G quarantine tank and treat with medicine or aquarium salt, depending on how sick they are. None of them recover. They always stay on the bottom of the tank after death.

The water parameters have been fairly normal every time i check after each death, with a few ammonia spikes, in which i do a 50% water change or more, depending on how bad it is. these spikes are rare.

Does my LFS just buy bad Gouramis?? Do they have bad strains? All my other fish from there are fine; there’s the occasional death. I’m not sure what I could be doing and it’s so demoralizing. They’re wonderful fish and i feel completely powerless in trying to help them.

Current parameters:
78 F
7.6 pH
0.0 ammonia
0.0 nitrite
~8 ppm nitrate

Thanks, guys.
 

Attachments

  • 0EA1743D-6BD3-4B5C-99E1-D51AFA4D20F5.jpg
    0EA1743D-6BD3-4B5C-99E1-D51AFA4D20F5.jpg
    253.2 KB · Views: 75
  • EC48A497-80AB-4467-ACF6-08BCD9A55BB7.jpg
    EC48A497-80AB-4467-ACF6-08BCD9A55BB7.jpg
    260.5 KB · Views: 55
It does sound an issue with their stock. Although I guess they are making it to the shop so something is going on. Is your water and shop water from same source?
 
It does sound an issue with their stock. Although I guess they are making it to the shop so something is going on. Is your water and shop water from same source?

No, they are different water sources, but Minnesota gets most of its water from the same place: groundwater, rain runoff, and local sources. I’ve compared the two waters, and mine is slightly more basic, but other than that they’re pretty similar. The fish do seem to pep up with water changes.
 
Back
Top Bottom