Dying dwarf gourami

[Bexy]

Please help!
I’ve had my aquarium for years but realised I wasn’t as educated at keeping fish as I should be,and I’m trying to rectify this.I feel very sad about this and hope I can do better going forward.
I completely cleaned and re-set up my empty tank a few months ago,and started with 3 dwarf gourami.They were fine to start with,but then 2 of them died quite close together after a month or so.The 3rd seemed fine,and has been for a few months,but yesterday they started lying on the bottom of the tank,on their side and breathing rapidly.
I’ve checked water parameters and temperature and it’s normal.I’ve been doing regularly partial water changes,feeding sparingly and changing filter pads.I’ve done some reading and it could be iridovirus - but how could it contract it when it’s been on its own for months?(I thought introducing new fish to a single fish where there was potential disease wouldn’t be right?)
I’d be grateful to hear any thoughts around what is happening here please?

 

[Andy Sager]

Please help!
I’ve had my aquarium for years but realised I wasn’t as educated at keeping fish as I should be,and I’m trying to rectify this.I feel very sad about this and hope I can do better going forward.
I completely cleaned and re-set up my empty tank a few months ago,and started with 3 dwarf gourami.They were fine to start with,but then 2 of them died quite close together after a month or so.The 3rd seemed fine,and has been for a few months,but yesterday they started lying on the bottom of the tank,on their side and breathing rapidly.
I’ve checked water parameters and temperature and it’s normal.I’ve been doing regularly partial water changes,feeding sparingly and changing filter pads.I’ve done some reading and it could be iridovirus - but how could it contract it when it’s been on its own for months?(I thought introducing new fish to a single fish where there was potential disease wouldn’t be right?)
I’d be grateful to hear any thoughts around what is happening here please?

Sadly, the iridovirus has been found in many farms in Asia where most of the Dwarf Gouramis that are on the market come from so the virus was in your fish when you got them. What happens is the fish goes under some stress and it " activates" the virus. It doesn't need other fish to get it.
If you can be more specific on the symptoms and post a pic of the fish in it's current condition, we might be able to better diagnose. Unfortunately, if it is the virus, there is no treatment for it that I know of.

 

[Colin_T]

Hi and welcome to the forum

Besides the Iridovirus, dwarf gouramis (Colisa lalius) are also regularly infected with Fish Tuberculosis (TB). Fish can carry this for months or even a year or more before the bacteria damage/ destroy an internal organ. Then the fish bloats up over night, stops eating, does a stringy white poop, breathes heavily, and dies within 24-48 hours of showing these symptoms.

There is no cure for Fish TB and it is quite common in dwarf gouramis (especially those from Asia).

I recommend people avoid buying dwarf gouramis (Colisa lalius) or any of their colour varieties because of these two diseases (Iridovirus & TB). If either of these diseases get into your aquarium, they remain there until you scrap the tank and disinfect everything in it.

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You mention you change the filter pads.
What sort of filter is on the tank?
How often and how do you clean it?

You don't want to change the filter media/ materials unless they start to fall apart. If you regularly replace filter media, you get rid of any good filter bacteria with the media and you can have ammonia or nitrite problems.

Filter media should be washed/ squeezed out in a bucket of aquarium water once a month after the filter has established. It takes about 6 weeks for the filter bacteria to become established and filters should not be cleaned during this 6 week period unless they are blocking up and the water flow is restricted. The filter media gets re-used and the bucket of dirty water gets poured on the lawn/ garden outside.

The only time you replace the filter media is if it starts to break down (fall apart). You can add sponge to most filters and sponge will last for years and only gets replaced when it falls apart. You can buy sponges for different brands of filter and use a pair of scissors to cut them to fit your filter. You can normally add some sponge to a filter while it has the current filter pads in. This means there will be some beneficial filter bacteria left in the filter when you eventually discard the filter pad.

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If the fish has stopped eating and is breathing heavily, I would euthanise it and flush the tank out. Don't get any more dwarf gouramis and don't add any Bettas or gouramis to this tank unless it has been thoroughly cleaned and disinfected first.

 

[Bexy]

Hi both,
Thank you so much for your advice - very much appreciated.Interestingly the fish seems very slightly better today (I was sure it was a goner last night).It’s still lying on its side at the bottom and breathing quite fast,but is also now wriggling more and has lightened back to its normal colour.However,I do think it might be near its end still

I have also now noticed that it has what looks like a brown growth and white spot on its gill (I tried to take some photos but they haven’t turned out well).

Thanks as well for the advice on disinfecting the tank.When my last fish all died,I left the tank for a while and then washed it along with gravel and ornaments but stupidly didn’t think about disinfecting ?.

In terms of the filter,I don’t think I explained it very well (sorry!) it’s the original filter and I change the algae and filter pad every month,alongside a 30% (approx.) water change.Every six months or so I then also wash the filter itself.

Thank you for your help.

 

[Bexy]

To add also - thank you for telling me about all the issues with dwarf gourami and their health.Unfortunately I was ignorant of all of this,but I will make sure I don’t buy gourami again,as I want to ensure that the fish I buy have been bred ethically,and it sounds like this is not often the case.

Are you able to suggest some hardy fish that are commonly free of breeding-related diseases please?

 

[Andy Sager]

At this point, the best thing to do is to euthanize these fish as these new spots may be fish TB so do not handle them with bare hands and sanitize whatever you use to harvest them and euthanize them in.
Here's another little secret most don't realize: Fish will often look their best with nice bright colors as they are preparing to die. This is a defense mechanism to make fish wanting to eat them think they are healthy and not a good choice to eat. Other than a few cichlid varieties and some other types of bottom fish, fish lying down on the bottom is never a good sign.

As for suggesting fish species, we need to know what size tank you have and the equipment you are using.

 

[Colin_T]

To add also - thank you for telling me about all the issues with dwarf gourami and their health. Unfortunately I was ignorant of all of this, but I will make sure I don’t buy gourami again, as I want to ensure that the fish I buy have been bred ethically, and it sounds like this is not often the case.

Most people don't know about these diseases so don't blame yourself. I know about them because I worked in the pet industry and had Fish TB in my tanks. I was also working in the industry when the gourami Iridovirus appeared and that made headlines in the fish keeping industry but everyone was told to keep quiet about it. Basically the pet shops didn't want to scare customers by saying your fish could have TB or a virus that kills any labyrinth fish (Bettas & Gouramis) you put in the tank. That's bad for business. I told the boss to stop getting those particular fish in. He kept getting them but the Australian government enacted laws saying any labyrinth fish that comes into Australia must have a vet certificate saying they are Iridovirus free, and they must be quarantined for a minimum of 4 weeks. That helped us out but other countries don't have the same laws, and there is no way to guarantee 100% that an infected fish doesn't come in.

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Are you able to suggest some hardy fish that are commonly free of breeding-related diseases please?

No. Virtually any fish that is bred in tropical Asia (and that's where 90% of aquarium fish come from) is inbred and potentially contaminated or has been exposed to these diseases at some point in their life.

The only way to get good quality fish is to get wild caught and most places don't deal with them because they are "too hard to keep alive". Barbs, tetras and most catfish & loaches are generally pretty healthy as far as inbreeding goes, but I can't guarantee any fish coming from a fish farm or pet shop is free of Fish TB or hasn't been exposed to the Iridovirus.

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

What is the GH (general hardness), KH (carbonate hardness) and pH 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).

Depending on what the GH of your water is, will determine what fish you should keep.

Angelfish, discus, most tetras, most barbs, Bettas, gouramis, rasbora, Corydoras and small species of suckermouth catfish all occur in soft water (GH below 150ppm) and a pH below 7.0.

Livebearers (guppies, platies, swordtails, mollies), rainbowfish and goldfish occur in medium hard water with a GH around 200-250ppm and a pH above 7.0.

If you have very hard water (GH above 300ppm) then look at African Rift Lake cichlids, or use distilled or reverse osmosis water to reduce the GH and keep fishes from softer water.