911! My Dwarf Gourami is Dieing

Robsfunfish · 02-22-2007, 08:30 PM

O.K. I'll start by telling the conditions of my tank. I checked with my test strips, here are the readings: Nitrates - 20, Nitrites - 0, Hardness - 120, Alkalinity - 180, PH - 7.6, Water temp. 82*, carbon and bio filtration
My tank has been running for 9 weeks, so it shoud be cycled good. I done a 25% water change yesterday,
I have only had him a week. I bought 2 when I got them and the other one seems to be fine for now. I have hatchet fish and a cory cat that I have had for 6 to 8 weeks and they are fine.
I do have some kind of alge in my tank(Brown growing on artificial plants).
I came home from work tonight and he was laying on the bottom, still breating, but laying on his side.
Sorry if this is posted twice, I got knocked off line after i hit the post button.

29 Gal FW
3 Hatchet Fish
1 Albino Cory Cat
2 Gourami

Tommy Gun · 02-22-2007, 08:43 PM

Hey Rob, sorry to hear about your troubles here...there could be quite a few things at play here IMO.

First, when you did the water change, did you use a dechlor product?

How did you acclimate your new gourami to your tank?

IMHO, the brown algae could also be a couple of things, none of which I would think could or would impact only a gourami and not another fish...if it can affect anything fish, period. Algae is a fact of life in most cases and so it is not always a concern other than for aesthetics in most cases...obviously it can get out of control as well, but that does not sound like the case here.

Can you give us any more information about this fish and/or your tank history? Has anything changed? When did you last test the tank prior to this event? How does that compare to what is going on with the tests you did today or after the issue came about?

Robsfunfish · 02-22-2007, 08:57 PM

Thanks Tommy for replying so quick.
I did add declorinator to my water when i changed it, I have had him for a week, I bought him on Valentines day. I did acclimate him when i brought him home by floating the bag and adding water from my aquarium to the bag every 10 mins. until i had done this 30 mins. He has been doing fine until this morning i did notice when i fed them this morning that he just stayed on the bottom, and would not come up to eat, however he did eat some food that floated down. He really did not act sick, but I did think that it was strange that he didn't come to the top to eat.

I try to test the water in my tank every 2 days, however I did not do a test yesterday before i changed the water, I did test it after i changed it, cant remember exactly what the readings were, but i know they were at safe levels or i would have been doing something then.
The only thing i can think of is maybe he got stressed really bad during the process of vacumming the tank and changing the water.
Oh yea, I just remembered seeing him eat a piece of food that I stired up off the bottom of the tank when I was vacumming the gravels. Could this have something to do with it

Other than this everything has been going good for the past 4 weeks.

Tommy Gun · 02-22-2007, 09:21 PM

I couldnt be sure if eating the stirred up food would be bad for the fish or not...I think anyone would have a very hard time determining that. However, in reality, and I am sure you saw this coming...you shouldn't have food like that on your substrate. You may be overfeeding, but I know that you understand that.

Usually, fish are not going to get hugely stressed from doing water changes, unless of course, you are really beligerant about how you go about doing it.

The fact that the fish is still eating, but does not swim could be an indication of an illness or disease. Are there any other symptoms that your fish may have right now? For example, is it still as colorful as the day you saw it in the LFS's tank? Does it appear bloated or have any scales that seem to stick out when they should be laying flat against the 'skin'?

For now, I would try to feed it by hand to ensure that it gets enough nutrition until you can figure things out better. I would also try to increase the O2 in the tank by adding an airstone or increasing the turbulence created by the water returning to the tank from the filter. That should help rule out a few other issues that could be a cause of this, even if they are unlikely.

Do you use an airstone and what type of filtration do you use?

Have you retested the tank tonight? And, do you test for ammonia? If so, what is that level?

Robsfunfish · 02-22-2007, 10:03 PM

Tommy,
I do not see anything that looks any different. No signs of Ich, no scales sticking out, and his color is still good, maybe a little bit pale, but not much if any. He doesn't appear to be bloated.
He is not swimming now except in circles. It was this morning when he was just swimming on bottom and would't come up to eat.
I do have an airstone, but I do not use it in this tank. I used it in a smaller tank that I had. My filter system that I use (Not sure of the name, it came with the tank) but the water after going through the carbon and bio filter falls back into the tank like a waterfall. I guess it might do a little good to lower the water level for more oxygen, huh?
I just tried to feed him by hand, but i don't think he really eat much of it.

Quote:

you shouldn't have food like that on your substrate, you may be overfeeding.

I usually put enough food in so some gets to the bottom so my cory cat can eat too.
I just netted him and pulled him close to the top of the water. I read that these fish are air breathers too(Labyrinth fish), and i see them go to the top a lot and get a gulp of air.
I think I will put my airstone in the tank and maybe even lower my water level to stir up more oxygen.

Robsfunfish · 02-22-2007, 11:25 PM

Oh well He just died

I just wonder how old he was. He was 2" and the max on Dwarf Gourami is 2". He was my favorite

I forgot to respond about the ammonia test that you asked about Tommy. I do not have a test specificly for ammonia. The salesman at my LFS said that if the nitrates and nitrites tested fine than the ammonia should be OK. I'm not sure if He knows what He is talking about or not

.
please respond back with info on how i can test for ammonia if this is not right.

again thanks for you help, We tried
Robsfunfish

Loman · 02-22-2007, 11:34 PM

I am not sure how closely you looked at the fish but if there was an ammonia issue I would expect some bleeding around or slightly below the gills. I understand basically what the sales person is saying regarding ammonia in that ammonia will be converted in Nitrite which will be converted into Nitrate so if both of those are fine you can infer the ammonia level is also.That is probably true most of the time but sometimes ammonia can jump and it is usually the first one to jump IMO so I like to test for it. In fact I am almost the opposite of the LFS in that I want to know the ammonia level and think that the Nitrites will follow that. Nitrates are needed to know when a water change is really appropriate. For the limited expense I would grab an ammonia test kit and check that level so you know what it is and are not guessing. In this case I suspect the ammonia is at zero. The fish death is hard to explain but it could be the cumulative stress of shipping acclimation etc.

Robsfunfish · 02-23-2007, 12:26 AM

Hi Loman, and thanks for the reply,
Do you think that he could have still been suffering from stress, since I have had him a week and he seemed to be doing just fine. I did not see any sign of bleeding around the gills, and I did look prety close.
I have asked several times about how to test for ammonia and which is the best to get for this test, and so far no one has ever told me. I have asked about it on other threads that I have communicated on. Please tell me what you use to test for ammonia. The people at my LFS say that the strips that I have are what I need. So please let me know what and how is the best way to test for ammonia!
OH, and do you think I could have gotten an older fish. He was 2" long and this is what my literature that I have on Dwarf Gourami's say is the max, or what they can grow to be?
Do you know how long the life of Dwarf Gourami are. I have not found anything on this, however I have read that some species of fish can live up to 20 years in an aquarium. I'm just not sure that these would last that long even under best of conditions, but I am still very new at this and i do not know much, only what I have read.

Loman · 02-23-2007, 11:43 AM

A 2" fish is certainly well into adulthood but I doubt it was simply old age that killed it. Based on the readings in the tank and my assumption on ammonia I think your water parameters look pretty good too. With having a fish for 1 or 2 weeks it is still fairly new and depending on the vendor and all could still be suffering from the trauma of being caught and housed in many different tanks and conditions, transported repeatedly, fed inconsistently etc. Acclimation in the commercial setting is not always adhered to strongly. So he could have picked up something along the way that you could not easily observe. In actuality this is a strong and compelling argument for a QT tank that all new fish come into the display tank from after living there 2 to 8 weeks depending on your desires. I realize not that many people do this in freshwater but it is a good practice. At this point you will probably never be certain what happened.

In terms of ammonia there are liquid and strip tests for it. They will be separate than the 5 in 1 strips you have. The liquid is probably a bit more accurate and cheaper overall. I use the one by API and it works well for me. I also use a strip when I am lazy to test ammonia. I use the ones my Mardel usually although other brands are out there. Usually in the stores there will be an ammonia only test and the 5 in 1 test strips, or a box with both. I really do not think you have an ammonia problem but it is nice to be certain.