Sick Dwarf Red Gourami (has white pustule near mouth)

[weldon]

You can read all about my adventure in setting up a tank for my son in this thread. It's a 10g starter kit from Petsmart with a Top Fin 10 filter. The filter bag has been stuffed with floss, after a lot of the activated charcoal was removed. Fish have been in the tank 67 days or so. The Gourami has been in there for 20 days now. The cycle is still completing Nitrite showed up about 16 days ago and we've been managing to keep it under 2.0 by doing 50% PWC every other day or so.

Just yesterday we noticed a white growth/pustule near his mouth. Here's a pic...



You can see more pics at my Flickr page

Any ideas on what is afflicting my poor Gourami? Is it just stress from poor water conditions? I'll try and be more diligent about doing PWC's every day, but is there anything else I can do to help him out?[/img]

 

[Puriti]

Does it look swollen or just like something's growing on it?

 

[weldon]

I would say it looks more like it's swollen.

If it helps, you can click on the photos on the flickr site and then use the magnifying glass / zoom tool (labeled "all sizes") to get to the larger pictures where you might be able to see better.

 

[Puriti]

That kind of happened to my female betta that I had to put down. X.x I really have no idea what happened though... sorry X_____X Maybe there was a cut or something there and it got infected? Not too sure >__<

 

[Devilishturtles]

Try adding some Melafix to your tank. That will help if it is an external bacterial infection. Otherwise, sometimes things like that pop up for no apparent reason (except for genetics). Sometimes they go away, and sometimes they don't. Best you can do is keep good water quality and keep an eye out for it, making sure it doesn't get too much larger.

Also, is it's mouth open? Or am I looking at the picture wrong?

 

[Zagz]

It certainly does look swollen. I'd definately add the melafix and keep a close eye on it. You may need to add some antibiotic if it doesn't improve with the melafix.

 

[bman]

weldon,

I had the exact same thing happen to my gourami about 10 days after his intro to the tank. I treated with maracyn and melafix for about a week, then continued the melafix for an additional week. After a week of stopping the melafix it started looking better.

As a side note (and also thinking in retrospect) I wish I would have continued the maracyn dose for longer than I did. Reason being, my gourami got something called dropsy. Apparently, it is not a disease itself, but a symptom of an underlying, degenerative disease (such as kidney failure, internal problems). He died promptly 12 hours after showing the common Pine-coneing of dropsy. My thoughts are that the meds did help him get rid of the sore on his mouth, but maybe that went deeper than I could tell. The melafix is not an antibiotic, rather a chemical that helps promote healing of wounds. Maybe I masked the underdosing of maracyn by the melafix?

If I were you, I would dose meds. Gouramis are apparently succeptable to dropsy, and trust me, you want to avoid that issue altogether.

HTH

 

[weldon]

Well, thanks again for all the advice. Unfortunately, the gourami died a couple days ago. I'm going to assume it was Nitrite poisoning or a complication from that. He didn't look any worse for wear and the swollen area was actually almost unnoticeable postmortem.

The cycle continues in our little tank and Nitrite levels continue to climb. I'm trying to do a 50% PWC every other day to avoid stalling the cycle like I did earlier. The leopard danios still look hardy, healthy and happy.