Help, my fish are dying.

[mother2kamryn]

I'm not all that experienced, but I do know that something is wrong with my fish. I have a 38 gallon tank with gourami's and black skirt tetras. my tetra's are perfectly fine but i cant keep my gourami's alive. They turn dark in color and have boulges on their head. nothing external. something internal to cause a tumor look and they also get a bubble/boulge in thier stomach. about a week later they die after lying at the bottom of the tank. my husband is in the military and gone away. he is the expert. i dont know what is wrong or what to do. please help.

 

[Allivymar]

Okey doke. Need more info.

Since the tetras are ok, I kinda doubt its water parameters (ammonia/nitrite) but good to test them and be sure they aren't contributing.

What do the "bumps" look like? Cauliflowerlike? Blisters? Boils? Solid lumps? What color?

Is this happening when you add new gouramis? Or is it affecting ones that have been in the tank for a while?

The dark coloration usually means the fish is stressed. Dropsy (or bloat) is usually a secondary infection...

Do you have, or can you get a hospital tank (a small 10 with a cheap filter/heater would be fine)? Then you can remove the sick ones so they don't continue to spread disease, plus its easier to treat them once its figured out what to treat them with.

 

[mother2kamryn]

The head has bumps internally they look like the fish has tumors in its head, its boulgy. and the stomach is the same way, internally. they look solid.

i dont add new fish. we may possibly be moving in October. so it is only affecting the gourami's that i have had for a while. it seems to happen to my smaller ones.

 

[mother2kamryn]

oh yeah and just to let you know, the scales are fine, they are still lying completely flat but their eyes do look a little caved in. i hope this helps

 

[mother2kamryn]

ok my fourth gourami looks like it will be dead by tonight. that only leaves me with three and the third one looks like it is starting to get it too. color starting to change, eyes sinking in, boulges on head. what should i do?

 

[Allivymar]

Understand I have just started with gouramis, and have not had the problems you are currently experiencing:

I personally would remove the ill fish to a hospital/QT tank. My first thought would be to get them out of the environment and into one where you can control things better. I would heavily dose with anti-biotics; maybe Maracyn (eurythromycin) and Maracyn2 (Minocycline). Since its impossible to tell if whats going on is bacterial or viral in cause, it may not cure the poor guys. But you obviously need to do something and do it fast; thats where I would start.

Do keep in mind, if you move them to a QT tank you will have to keep on top of the water parameters as it won't be a cycled tank (and the anti-biotics will kill off the nitrifying bacteria that show up). Its one reason I wouldn't treat in the main tank. It will muck up your bacterial filter something awful.

 

[SixFootDaisy]

I hope your surviving fish make it!

 

[wabyrd]

Good luck. I've tried the Gouramis before, but I've never really been successful with keeping them. I've found they are very hard fish to keep.

 

[Allivymar]

Out of curiousity wabyrd, what sort of problems did you have? I've just started with a pair of male dawrf gouramis in my soon to be planted 10g and would like to know what to be on the lookout for.

 

[wabyrd]

An infection that was similar to body fungus. I have also had many of them develop ulcers on their body and heads. I've tried curing many times, but none of them successful. I've pretty much given up on keeping them myself. They're great looking fish, but I hate flushing them all the time.

 

[mother2kamryn]

its nice to know that i am not the only one having these problems. my husband is on the other coast and is convinced that i am intensionally killing his precious fish. now i can tell him that this is pretty common and we just wont buy them any more. beautiful fish just no shelf life. that is unfortunate. i am down to 3 gourami's now. i gave them 3 doses of neomycin over the last few days. my smallest one still looks sick but is not dying as fast as the others maybe it is helping. im crossing my fingers. i have a 38 gallon and if these three die it will only leave me with 6 black skirt tetra's. thanks for everything! any more suggestions would be appriciated

 

[Allivymar]

Heh, we all have probs from time to time mother2kam; when I started I had 2 angelfish and a plec in a 10g! I cycled the tank with em. And yep, one of the angels killed the other. Not one of my prouder fishkeeping moments LOL

Interesting how its only affecting the gouramis. I wonder if theres any gourami specific diseases out there (kinda like Neon Tetra Disease, which affects other fish as well but predominantly affects neons).