Why did my dwarf gourami die?

[kimberly]

I have a 58 gal planted tank. Inhabitants: 4 fancy guppies, 3 clown loaches (3ish inches...I know they will outgrow my tank), 8 orange von rio tetras and until a few minutes ago 1 dwarf gourami.

Test results (from right after I found dead fish)
ammonia: 0
nitrate 40
nitrite 0

I do about 20% water changes every Saturday, but last Saturday I did 50% and rearranged the tank (plants and rocks).

The last fish I added was the gourami, about 3 weeks ago.

I did notice about a week ago a long thread like worm in the gravel.

The gourami looked good (no redness, no damage anywhere) except he was on the bottom on the tank dead.

What should I do now? I am going out of town tomorrow and won't be back until really late Monday. I have a trusted fishy person coming in to feed all of our fish and our dogs while gone.

Thanks.

 

[malkore]

could very well be from natural causes. most all the dwarf gourami in the stores are full fledged adults, and they don't have a particularly long life span anyways, something like 18 months.

So if you figure it's close to 8 months old when you buy them, you still have less than a year before they 'check out'.


nitrate is high in my opinion, but not high enough to be toxic. the worm in the substrate was probably not a parasite, probably more like planaria.

 

[lmw80]

gouramis have an average life span of 4 years (if properly cared for).

Was he eating and pooping?

Planaria like malkore mentioned are very thin white worm like things...my gourami likes to eat them.

 

[talloulou]

Nitrate is high especially considering you do water changes every week. You're probably overfeeding. The overfeeding would also be the answer to why you have worms in your substrate. Either way I think you just got a weak gourami from the store.

 

[kimberly]

I am working on the overfeeding thing and *trying* to do better with the amount I feed, but the fish are such beggars and I am such a sucker!

Yes, the gourami was eating. I noticed him pooping a couple of times, but I didn't notice very often.

Thanks for the encouraging answers. I am trying to do this aquarium right for the first time in my aquarium keeping career so it was upsetting to find a dead fish this afternoon (since I am doing water changes, have a test kit, etc).