Depressed Pearl Gourami?

[woohoo0]

I’ve had my pearl for almost a year in a 25 gallon that’s been running for over a year. He’s lives with 3 ottos, 4 embers, 2 cherry barbs and 1 small ember sized fish that is unidentified. His tank mates have been with him for almost his entire time with me (except for the ottos which I introduced on Sunday) without any problems.
Water parameters are 0 nitrate, 0 nitrite, ph 7-7.5 temp ~78

He’s been fine this whole time until about a week ago. He’s slower and just floats there or hides. Stares off into the distance like he’s having an existential crisis. He takes a lot longer to eat. He used to dominate the food.

Today he started hanging out toward the bottom of the tank. All the other fish are totally fine. I have pressurized co2 running but there’s also an air stone and he isn’t gasping at all. He will occasionally swim up and take a sip of air but not more than normal for a gourami.

It had been about 2 weeks since I did a water change. I had midterms and didn’t get around to it, but I tested the water to make sure it was okay and the results were 0,0.
I did a water change today, probably 20%. I’m hoping he just needed some fresh water.
There’s quite a bit of algae, it started getting a little crazy a couple days ago and I removed a bit of it during my water change. There’s still a bit of loose algae everywhere and i may do another 20% change tmrw but he tends to get stressed when I do so Ill have to see.

No signs of illness, his fins and scales are as usual, and he’s very pearly.
The only things I can think of are 1) floating plants - I have floating plants but they aren’t growing very well for some reason (water spangles) but there is a bonsai tree he uses for shade or 2) I need to feed him better food. I tried to buy omega color pellets the other day but they ran out. I’ve been feeding them crappy flakes and lettuce switching off every few days.

 

[Colin_T]

Hi and welcome to the forum

Can you post some pictures of the gourami and the entire aquarium?
Can you post a video of the gourami?
You can upload videos to YouTube, then copy & paste the link here.
If you use a mobile phone to film the fish, hold the phone horizontally so the footage fills the entire screen.

What is the ammonia level in the water?

What are the tank dimensions (length x width x height)?

What is the GH (general hardness) and KH (carbonate hardness) of your water supply?
This information can usually be obtained from your water supply company's website or by telephoning them. If they can't help you, take a glass full of tap water to the local pet shop and get them to test it for you. Write the results down (in numbers) when they do the tests. And ask them what the results are in (eg: ppm, dGH, or something else).

How often do you do water changes and how much do you change?
Do you gravel clean the substrate when you do a water change?
Do you dechlorinate the new water before adding it to the tank?

What sort of filter is on the tank?
How often and how do you clean the filter?
What filter media/ materials are in the filter?

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Do you normally feed one type of fish food or do the fish get a varied diet?
f you only feed one type of food and run out, some fish will go on a hunger strike or get upset if you try to feed them something that tastes or feels different. If you feed them a variety of dry, frozen and live foods, this is less likely to occur.

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Is the tank heavily planted?
If not, there is no need to add carbon dioxide (CO2). There is plenty of CO2 in most aquariums and it is produced continuously by the fish, beneficial filter bacteria, and rotting organic matter in the tank. You also get CO2 entering the water from the atmosphere if the level in the water is lower than the air.

Algae is normally caused by an imbalance between light, nutrients and the number of plants. Too much light or nutrients (including CO2), or not enough live plants will cause algae problems.

Having an airstone bubbling away can drive out excess CO2, thus countering you adding CO2 to the tank. Most people that run CO2 on their tank, have an airstone bubbling away at night or turn the CO2 off an hour before lights out and have it come on when the lights come on.

 

[woohoo0]

Here he is, this pic was taken on oct 12. I tried to take one just now but I really can't get a good pic. As you can see his bottom fit is weird, it's been like that for a while I guess it's just receded more. His dorsal fin now looks more like his bottom fin where the "spine" structure of it is intact but the "webbing" is receding. It's weird, because it doesn't seem like fin rot. His "arm sockets?" are red, I'm not sure how long it's been like that. The day I took this pic he seemed fine, he was swimming around like usually and acting and eating normally. His chest is a bit yellow, I know they are supposed to turn orange when they get older. I guess I never noticed because he was acting completely fine but looking back he may have been sick for a while. The thing is, I've had him for almost a year, and he's grown a bit but not to full size. I thought maybe the food I gave him didn't have the right nutrients. It looks like he has a red spot on his back near the dot near his tail but that is just the lights as you can see at the surface of the water. His scales are fine, theres no fungus or fluff or dots that I can see right now. His tail fin is also fine

In comparison to this photo, his chest is more yellow and his dorsal is more receded, but other than that he looks the same.

0 amnonia

Tank is approx 24 L x 15 H x 15 D
GH is 120ppm, KH 80ppm

Water changes every 1-2 weeks, 20-40% - it varies but it's always in that range. Light to medium gravel vac - I have carpetting plants in some areas so I lightly vac the plants to clean them without uprooting them and I clean the uncarpetted gravel a little more.

I always add declorinator to the water into the tank before adding new water.

The tank is from lifeguard and has a built in filter in the back. It has these blue balls that do I have no idea what, carbon balls, and a giant very course sponge. I added bio media and the sponge from a sponge filter (just in case I need to cycle a quarantine)

I don't clean the filter often, but I check it every couple months. It really has no signs of being dirty but maybe 2-3 times over the course of this tank I've squeezed it in some water from a water change just enough to freshen it up a little.

I switch between some random aqueon flakes and lettuce. Today I tried some omega one flakes and they took it, including the pearl (though he barely ate any) I also got some freeze dried bloodworms but I don't think they recognize it at food. I only put 2 in to see what they would do and eventually a couple cherry barbs ate them. I plan to switch between the two flakes and treat them with the dried bloodworms and eventually phase out the aqueon flakes.

My tank is planted with high demand plants. They are doing well with the co2. I added the airstone because I treated the tank with some blue-green slime remover a while ago and it reccomends more airflow. I kept it in there ever since I noticed my pearl acting weird to eliminate o2 deprivation as an issue.

My co2 timer went out of wack for a couple days which I think contributed to the algae. I also haven't been adding ferts because I believe I added too much at one point but now there's not enough. The problem is slowly going away so I'm not too worried about that. My co2 turns on an hour before the lights and turns off an hour before the lights go off.

I hope my pearl fairs okay but from the looks of it he's got some kind of illness.

 

[Colin_T]

No pictures or video

Gouramis are labyrinth fishes and have an organ in the top of their head that lets them take in air from the atmosphere and get oxygen from that. If the CO2 level gets too high in the water, the gourami will simply take in air from the surface.

If the CO2 level gets too high in the water, other fishes that aren't labyrinth fishes will breath more rapidly and might start gasping at the surface. If this happens, there is usually a drop in the pH at the same time, but not always, that depends on the KH and you have some so it shouldn't drop. But monitor their breathing and if it seems to be abnormal, then there might be too much CO2 in the water.

If you are concerned about too much fertiliser in the water, do a 75-90% water change each week and then re-dose the tank after the water change. The big water change will dilute any or most of the remaining nutrients so there is less chance of overdosing the tank and poisoning the fish.

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Blue Green algae killer is usually an antibiotic (Erythromycin) and should only be used on known bacterial infections that haven't responded to normal treatments. Improper use and mis-use of antibiotics has lead to drug resistant bacteria that kill people, birds, animals, reptiles and fish.

Blue green algae loves lots of nutrients and low oxygen levels and can normally be dealt with by reducing the nutrients and increasing water movement and oxygen levels in the water.

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The blue spheres/ objects in the filter are usually bio-balls and are meant to be for beneficial filter bacteria to live on. You can give them a rinse in a bucket of tank water once a month to remove any gunk on them, then put the bio-balls back in the filter and tip the bucket of water out.

Sponges in filters should be cleaned once a month in a bucket of tank water and the sponges are re-used while the dirty water goes on the lawn.

Carbon will remove fertiliser from the water so remove the carbon and replace it with another sponge. You can use any sort of sponge for aquarium filters so just buy whatever is the right size or bigger and cut it to fit.

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BASIC FIRST AID FOR FISH
Wipe the inside of the glass down with a clean fish sponge. This removes the biofilm on the glass and the biofilm will contain lots of harmful bacteria, fungus, protozoans and various other microscopic life forms.

Do a 75% water change and gravel clean (lightly hoover in your case) the substrate every day for a week or until the problem is identified. The water changes and gravel cleaning will reduce the number of disease organisms in the water and provide a cleaner environment for the fish to recover in. It also removes a lot of the gunk and this means any medication can work on treating the fish instead of being wasted killing the pathogens in the gunk.
Make sure any new water is free of chlorine/ chloramine before it is added to the tank.

Clean the filter if it hasn't been done in the last 2 weeks. However, if the filter is less than 6 weeks old, do not clean it. Wash the filter materials/ media in a bucket of tank water and re-use the media. Tip the bucket of dirty water on the garden/ lawn. Cleaning the filter means less gunk and cleaner water with fewer pathogens so any medication (if needed) will work more effectively on the fish.

Increase surface turbulence/ aeration to maximise the dissolved oxygen in the water. Or turn the CO2 off for a week.

Post some pictures and video of the fish and tank when you can

 

[Autumnsky]

This sounds like there might be ammonia.

You can take a sample before doing water changes.
Are you using test strips? They often just stop working properly. If so, it might be a good idea to take a sample to a store for a double check.

Then do a couple water changes. Just to be sure.