EMERGENCY! Seriously Injured Dwarf Guorami. Please Help

[Aguirran]

Please help!
I have a Neon Blue Dwarf Guorami I have had for about a year. I noticed he hadnt come out for dinner tonight and realized I hadnt seen him this morning either. I searched everywhere for him and finally found him well stuck, but still wriggly inside a hole in a fake coral tank accessory. I tried to gentle wiggle him for a while, but could not. I ended up having to gentle push him back through the hole.
He swam off, but is VERY seriously injured. He is having a hard time swimming and is doing so every few minutes. His scales are scraped off exposing white for about 1cm on the top of his head. He has a deep gouge that is shredded and mildly bloody (though not actively bleeding) on the ventral surface of his body. It look like he had been stuck for a while.
I have moved him to a small 10gallon quarantine/sick tank. He is resting on the bottom and swimming to the surface every few minutes.
I care about this boy quite a bit. Is there a chance he can heal? Or should I, very sadly, go ahead and quickly end his misery rather than draw out his suffering?
Please help!!

 

[Aguirran]

I uploaded a bunch of photos into an album on my profile entitled "Injured Guorami".

His name is Steve-O and he's a little punk. . I want to save him. But i dont want to prolong his suffering..........

 

[Aguirran]

Well, he is still alive........

 

[Dallascowboys16]

all you can do here is keep the water PRISTINE and he has a chance. he could contract a secondary infection if the water isn't perfect. good luck and I hope he improves!

 

[Delapool]

Give him a chance. Others (myself included) have sucked up fish through gravel vacs and they come back ok.

 

[PB_Smith]

Reminds me of one of the old rules of thumb, never, ever use coral in a fresh water tank, the fish apparently don't realize how sharp it is or how to safely negotiate it, as demonstrated by your gourami's incident.
Keep a close eye out for any bacterial infections.

 

[Aguirran]

Thank you guys so much. I currently have him in the quarantine tank, but inside one of those "dip and pour" topless containers. For two reasons: i have two other dwarf gouramis in quarantine currently and also- I dont know if he would be able to swim all the way to the surface of the tank if he was in the bottom of the 10gallon quarantine. I am changing the water in his mini isolation tank every 12 hours to keep it clean and treating with Melafix. He ate some food today and is staying upright (vs laying on his side in the bottom).

Is this ok? Other options would be to suspend him in his mini isolation tank inside our main 65 gallon OR I could potentially move the two male gouramis in quarantine to the main tank. I'm a bit hesitant to do the later as they are new fish and, although they seem healthy, they've only been in quarantine for 3 days.

 

[Delapool]

I think that is a good idea to make it easier for him to get to the surface.