chocolate gourami swollen mouth

[Amherst]

My chocolate gourami's mouth is swollen, staying open without the ability to close. The upper part of the mouth is protruding and swollen, looking strange without any blood vessels or white mold. There are also no issues on the lips.

Currently, only this fish is having the issue, and I'm unsure if it's infectious. The mortality rate for isolated chocolate gouramis is quite high, as they are naturally timid by nature. Therefore, I'm hoping to find out if anyone knows or can identify this disease.

Water parameters:

- PH: 6.5
- Hardness: 75-100
- Nitrate: 0.5
- Nitrite: 0

There are about 11 gouramis in the tank, but only this one is showing symptoms. I hope someone can help identify the condition.

 

[Andy Sager]

Sometimes fish get " lockjaw" from over stretching their mouths or if they try to reach in too far into something to get some food or egg ( if they were spawning. ) If another fish did this, there would usually be a wound on the lips. What you can try is doing Epsom salt baths which help relax the muscles which can help the fish go back to " normal", otherwise, you can give it a few days to see if the fish can fix itself. ( it's a 50/50 chance that this resolves itself. )

Hope this helps.

 

[Amherst]

Sometimes fish get " lockjaw" from over stretching their mouths or if they try to reach in too far into something to get some food or egg ( if they were spawning. ) If another fish did this, there would usually be a wound on the lips. What you can try is doing Epsom salt baths which help relax the muscles which can help the fish go back to " normal", otherwise, you can give it a few days to see if the fish can fix itself. ( it's a 50/50 chance that this resolves itself. )

Hope this helps.

I appreciate your guidance, but regrettably, the fish did not survive despite my attempts at administering salt baths. It seems likely that the condition was Hexamita Infection, and, unfortunately, it was too late for any effective treatment.

 

[Andy Sager]

I appreciate your guidance, but regrettably, the fish did not survive despite my attempts at administering salt baths. It seems likely that the condition was Hexamita Infection, and, unfortunately, it was too late for any effective treatment.

Sorry to hear. I'm not sure how you arrived at a Hexamita cause. Hexamita is more related to hole in the head and lateral line disease more than other neurological or physical issues.
Sadly, chocolate Gouramis have a tendency to be fragile so with 10 other gouramis in the tank, it's more likely the fish sustained an injury to the mouth. At this point however, only a professional autopsy would be able to confirm yours or my assumption.
Watch out for aggression in the tank as well as making drastic changes to the water parameters as both of these can cause issues with fragile fish species.