Dwarf Pearl Gourami Deteriorating Despite Treatment? Help/Opinions wanted

[badwolf106]

Hello Fish Friends,

I've had a 49 gallon freshwater community tank set up for about a full year now. It is stocked with guppies, a sword tail, an albino bristlenose, and a Dwarf Pearl Gourami. The tank is water changed and gravel vacuumed 25/30% every week and my testing kit says numbers are all in the normal range.

About 3 months back I lost about three mollies and two platies to some undiagnosed quick killer (noticed odd behavior same day of death). I have not added new fish to the tank since then and no one has displayed any signs of disease similar to what I saw in them. The guppies remain unbothered by pretty much anything that happens in this tank.

The issue I'm having is my Pearl has a splotch on her lower tummy that the scales came away. I noticed this roughly 3 weeks ago. She has had this happen before and it got better -- so I kept an eye on it. I noticed on particularly aggressive guppy giving her spot a hard time, though -- so I removed that guppy into a breeder floating tank to allow her time to heal without being pestered. Despite this, the spot has grown, a similar one showing up on the other side of her body and a smaller spot in the middle of her torso. It looks like something is slowly eating away at her. I have done two weeks of ParaGuard and two edible doses of Klanaplex as an attempt to get rid of whatever is eating through her body.

While she sleeps most of the day in a dark part of the tank, she comes up to eat and otherwise is acting normal. The 'hole' type patch has moved a bit to her lower thin belly fins where I can see 2 or 3 pin pricks of completely been eaten away fin close to her body. I am not sure if this is the disease worsening or if she has just spent more time than usual on the gravel bed and caused some chaffing.

Anyway, tldr; Dwarf Pearl Gourami has something going on with her skin. Paraguard and Klanaplex has not proved any notable healing in the two weeks I've used them. Other fish are unbothered... Thoughts? I can't use my quaratine tank because I have a Betta stationed up on it right now trying to regrow some fins from being pestered in the community tank.

Love to hear what the community think is going on.