Sudden pearl gourami death..

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madcaps

Aquarium Advice Newbie
Joined
May 27, 2018
Messages
2
So three days ago, I purchased three pearl gouramis for my 40 gal. planted aquarium that I've had running for about two months. This morning, I found one lying on its side at the bottom of the tank, dead. Right now, I have a second one acting up, hovering around the surface swimming weakly (I have no idea if the first one was acting like this, it died overnight and was seemingly fine yesterday). There's no unusual growths or discolouration. They're currently being housed with six Sterba's corydoras.

I did a 25% water change with RO water (we've got very hard, high-alkaline tap water) before I went and bought the new fish (the afternoon of), and added them to the tank after first floating the bags and then drip-acclimating for about three hours. My parameters as of now are a pH of 7.0, nitrate 10 ppm, nitrite 0 ppm, GH 180 ppm, and I'm not sure of ammonia because my test strips ran out earlier this week, but there was a very recent water change. I use a Sicce Whale 200 canister for filtration.

Help?
 
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Ammonia level is very important. Also, test strips can be highly inaccurate most on the forums use the API Freshwater Master Test Kit. You can get it at Petco, Amazon, Petsmart etc..
If your readings are good, including nitrItes it could be a fluke. I bought a pearl gourami a couple of months ago and it died very suddenly. My water tested good and the other fish are still with me.
 
They sell that kit at my LFS, I'll definitely pick one of those up next time I stop in. Never gave much thought to test strip accuracy, thanks for letting me know.

I do try to keep my tank as clean as possible, it gets a thorough gravel vac + approximately 25-50% water changes a week, depending on how much I've been rooting around and making a mess adding/moving plants.
 
If you show your local Petco Store their on-line price they will honor it... $21.99 + tax... If you order it on-line the shipping kills the good price...
 
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