Here Fishy Fishy
Aquarium Advice Apprentice
Hello,
So in the last three or four weeks I have killed 3 gourami. I am not a new tank owner, I have had several large and small tank with a variety of fish but never gourami. The first two were Pearl Gourami. I got them together and they seemed fine for a few weeks. I started treating the tank for a different issue with some new tetra. Two days later the first of the Pearls died. The second died two days later. I am still convinced that the Melafix played a roll in those deaths...... Then a few weeks later I decided to try my hand with a powder blue dwarf. I got him on Saturday. He seemed fine swimming around and such....I found him dead on Friday morning.... the two Pearls lost color and were very lethargic a day or two before dying... the Powder Blue did not loss color at all. He seemed some what lethargic the night before and all of the gourami seemed disinterested in food. All other fish are fine.. very active and love feeding time. I feed every other day and alternate between tropical flake and a mix of blood worms and brine shrimp. All water stats look good they stay pretty much the same: Nitrates less than 20 to 0, Nitrites 0, total hardness 75, chlorine 0, alkalinity 80, ph 7.3-7.7. ammonia 0. I do frequent small water changes.
tank is 45G tall, Stock 8 neon tetra, 8 Harlequin, 4 bleeding hearts, 2 sword tails, 1 sailfin molly, 6 small cory's, 1 small lep. pleco, 2 snails, 2 small dwarf frogs, 1 bamboo shrimp, 4 amano shrimp.
Any ideas on what i am doing wrong?? Or are gourami just that hard to keep?? I really liked the two pearls and would like to get two more but want to understand why they died first.... Any ideas???
So in the last three or four weeks I have killed 3 gourami. I am not a new tank owner, I have had several large and small tank with a variety of fish but never gourami. The first two were Pearl Gourami. I got them together and they seemed fine for a few weeks. I started treating the tank for a different issue with some new tetra. Two days later the first of the Pearls died. The second died two days later. I am still convinced that the Melafix played a roll in those deaths...... Then a few weeks later I decided to try my hand with a powder blue dwarf. I got him on Saturday. He seemed fine swimming around and such....I found him dead on Friday morning.... the two Pearls lost color and were very lethargic a day or two before dying... the Powder Blue did not loss color at all. He seemed some what lethargic the night before and all of the gourami seemed disinterested in food. All other fish are fine.. very active and love feeding time. I feed every other day and alternate between tropical flake and a mix of blood worms and brine shrimp. All water stats look good they stay pretty much the same: Nitrates less than 20 to 0, Nitrites 0, total hardness 75, chlorine 0, alkalinity 80, ph 7.3-7.7. ammonia 0. I do frequent small water changes.
tank is 45G tall, Stock 8 neon tetra, 8 Harlequin, 4 bleeding hearts, 2 sword tails, 1 sailfin molly, 6 small cory's, 1 small lep. pleco, 2 snails, 2 small dwarf frogs, 1 bamboo shrimp, 4 amano shrimp.
Any ideas on what i am doing wrong?? Or are gourami just that hard to keep?? I really liked the two pearls and would like to get two more but want to understand why they died first.... Any ideas???
