Kareem Monzer
Aquarium Advice Apprentice
- Joined
- Apr 23, 2019
- Messages
- 25
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.
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.