Overnight Dorsal Fin Collapse And Discoloration On Pearl Gourami - Please Help!

[Kareem Monzer]

Hey guys!

So this is my first incident on my first fish in my first tank. My tank is heavily planted and was recently cycled and I've had ammonia: 0 ppm, nitrites: 0 ppm and nitrates: 5-10 ppm for over a week. I added 2 pearl gouramis (1 male and the other seems to be a female but I'm unsure) and 3 otocinclus as my first fish and they've been doing great. I feed them JBL Novo Bea, Hikari Tropical Micro Pellets and Hikari Mini Algae Wafers for the otos.

I woke up this morning with a strange sight. His entire dorsal fin seems to be chopped off or collapsed. I know this happened overnight because I was contrasting the two pearls' dorsal fins yesterday when trying to sex them and they were both fine. Throughout the day today, his coloring on his throat/chin has been fading considerably and he is now completely void of color on his throat.

I searched online and the main culprit seems to be fin rot, which can be due to water parameters and ammonia poisoning. I immediately tested my water fearing an ammonia spike but all the results seem perfect. 0 ammonia, 0 nitrite, 5 nitrates and 7.2 pH as always.

I've attached a picture of my tank aquascape and the current condition of my male pearl gourami. This is quite literally my second month in the hobby and I didnt expect my apparently "hardy" pearl gourami to experience this.

Can anyone please tell me what is going on here? and what action I need to take? A part of me is really hoping that he simply cut it on a piece of driftwood while swimming around the tank.

[SaraB]

He could have gotten it at the store and it could have been made worse by going into a new aquarium.
Keep your water clean, it should help. If you really wanted to medicate you could try melafix.
I would make sure it really is fin rot before medicating. Make sure that they aren't fighting and that he isn't just getting beaten up.

[Kareem Monzer]

Originally Posted by SaraB

He could have gotten it at the store and it could have been made worse by going into a new aquarium.
Keep your water clean, it should help. If you really wanted to medicate you could try melafix.
I would make sure it really is fin rot before medicating. Make sure that they aren't fighting and that he isn't just getting beaten up.

On the contrary, hes been chasing and harassing the other pearl since I got them three days ago. I specifically picked him out because of the beautiful orange throat he had back then.

[Kareem Monzer]

UPDATE: I just tried to feed them a small pinch of flake food and he didn’t want any of it. The other pearl gobbled them up. He’s not moving to the surface at all... this is him now.

[Katiestl]

That looks like ich to me, not fin rot. The white spots on the fins are what all my fish with ich have shown first. They fold them down. Some ate, some didn't. I also had people here tell me that my goldfish had burns on his fins due to my really low ammonia levels, but he actually was just turning black--perfectly healthy. But, I have never cured it and have never gotten an answer as to how to treat it here other than raising hte temp, which I cannot since they are goldfish and cories. Sorry, I cannot help. Look up photos of ich on google.

[goatnad]

That doesn't look like ich to me. It looks like a bacterial infection like columnaris. It's possible he rubbed his fin on something and that allowed the infection to set in. I have had something similar on my rainbow fish. I turned the heat up to 82 and added 1 teaspoon of aquarium salt per 5 gallons. Sadly one rainbow didn't make it but the other healed up just fine.

[Kareem Monzer]

Hey guys,

So I sent the fish back to my LFS and they said that they'd try to treat him for 7 days and get back to me. I really hope he makes it.

However, based on what I read, I don't think that ts columnaris. it's been 2 days since I took him out of my tank and the remaining fish seem to be doing just fine. The second pearl gourami (female) looks to be doing better than ever (eating well and active).

I did a 50% water change after I took him out of the tank anyway. Would any of you recommend I add anything else to the tank? Maybe some kind of medication to prevent further diseases?

[Delapool]

I would also agree not ich- looks more like a fungal / bacterial infection. Is that discolouration on the tail fin as well?

Out of interest - how long was fish in tank and had you done any large water changes with him in there? Wondering if there was some pre-trigger. It looks similar to columnaris as well but quite a range out there. Knowing the trigger might help.

Anyways, I’d treat quickly with a fungacide in case / help clean up infection and be adding antibiotics assuming now systematic as not eating / moving as much.

Ime bacterial infections including columnaris can be slow to spread. A school will gradually get infected while other fish are fine. I wouldn’t add any more fish for a few weeks.

[King Fisher]

Looks like fin rot that turned into fungus at the damaged spot. What is more concerning is the red blotches around it's gill area. Possibly a gill fluke.