Turns Out I Should Be Concerned! *pictures*

*Edited the title*

Hey everyone

I'm a little bit worried about some of my fish. I have a dwarf gourami who has a tiny red sore below his mouth and towards his left eye a little. It's just red (no white around it) and sticks off his face a tiny bit. It's been there for about a week, I've been watching it but it remains unchanged. At first I thought maybe he'd just bumped into the glass but now I'm not sure. His colours are great, all his fins are fine, not ragged or anything, he's still very active (not a shy fish at all) with a healthy appetite. Should I be worried/do anything for him? If people think it's important I can probably try and take a picture...

Also, some of my platies have been occasionally swimming with their tails clamped - and I've noticed a bit of white poo (gourami has this sometimes too) - parts of the poo are brown and some parts are white and stringy. Observed this within the last week. There seem to be a lot of white poo related questions on this forum so I thought it might have been important to mention. Sometimes I've seen two of the platy (not the gourami) rub against the plants. Very infrequently though.
The other fish I have are cories and as far as I can tell they seem to be fine.

Here's something that might be important. When I got these fish the tank was not cycled - I thought it was (bad LFS advice - have since gone nuts learning about it all). I think it's only become cycled the last two days - Nitrite of 1-2ppm (which I'd had for about a week and a bit) suddenly dropped to 0 when I measured yesterday and has stayed there today with nitrate of about 0.5-1.0 appearing. While I was having the nitrite readings I'd been doing 20-30% water changes every two days for the fish. Ammonia has been low or at 0 the whole time since I'm pretty sure I missed the ammonia spike (didn't have a kit yet - had a solitary goldfish in there 2 weeks before I got the tropicals). I've had these fish for around 3 1/2 weeks. There's some brown algae in the tank but I understand this is normal for new tanks. There's also 7 live plants.

Since the tank now appears to be cycled I'd been thinking about getting more fish soon as I'd been holding off till it was cycled. Except I thought I better make sure the fish I already have are healthy first...

So, to sum up:
Ammonia - 0
Nitrite - 0
Nitrate - 1.0
Temp - 25-26C
PH - 7.2-7.3
Tank - 148L/39 gallons
No recent additions (fish or ornamental) or added chemicals aside from dechlorinator during the water changes - which have been every 2nd day 20-30% until 2 days ago - since it seems to be cycled now there's no need for changes as frequently? Was going to watch it (ammonia/nitrites) and otherwise do it weekly...
Fish - Dwarf gourami, 3x platy, 2x cories. Symptoms described above.

Please let me know if I should take any action based on the above. I thought they just might be stressed from cycling and things will settle down now...but I thought there might be a parasite. Hopefully I'm overreacting...
Thankyou

Yes you should be worried

White poop/stringy poop means they are constipated.

Rubbing/flicking will mean that they have paracites, have a close look are they covered in white spots like grains of salt?

The sore needs treating as well, although im not so sure on that one

No. I had a close look at all their scales (to see if they were lifting up or anything) and there's nothing else on them.
So what should I do/how do I treat this? How do you un-constipate a fish? Or could that be related to parasites (if they have them...)

The constipation, fast and feed cooked deshelled peas.

Are the gills red/inflamed?

The peas I can probably do. Just microwaving frozen ones ok? They've only been getting flake food - should I give them some other vegies regularly to stop them getting constipated again? I read somethng about lettuce and cucumber being good? Any particular types/ways to prepare it?

Just checked out (well tried to, those guys are fast) the gills, can't see anything red or obvious. I'm guessing if it was bad it would be quite clear to me?

I was about to take a picture (especially of the gourami's sore) but the camera battery is flat so once it's charged I'll see what I can do about getting a pic up. I've never taken pics of my tank before so not sure how they'll turn out

In the meantime based on the above, can anyone tell me what meds I am likely to need? It's just that I'm placing an online order soon for some other stuff I need and thought I could include it - I was already planning to get some melafix, pimafix and an ich treatment (just to have on hand).

Thankyou

*Edit* - Should I get something like Sterazin too, which is an anti-parasite med? There's also Myxazin too which seems quite good - what would be the best med(s) to get?

Normal microwaved peas are fine. squeeze them between you fingers to take off the shell and mush them up a bit. Veggies will help them not get constipated, flake foods are quite bad at causing constipation. Lettuce and cucumber and courgettes are great too. Daphnia are supposed to be good as well.

Get all the meds you can, its handy to have everything to hand just in case.

Ok, I've tried to take some pictures of the gourami but I really suck at it. Either the fish wouldn't stay in focus or the light is reflecting off his scales so brightly you can't see the sore very well, how red it is, or how it sticks off his face on that side. You can hardly see it in the 2nd one for some reason. The other side (comparing sides on the 2nd pic) is completely smooth and flat compared to where the sore is. As you can see (hopefully) it's only very little - but it's been there for a fair while now. If I manage to get a better pic later I'll post it. He's pretty but he was too vain to give me a decent shot of his 'ugly' side !

Eventually I'd like to have a little stockpile of meds, but at the moment I can only afford a few - based on my fishes symptoms described in the first post - which are the ones I'll need to treat with now? Please respond quickly, I'll need to order it and it can take a few days.

A food question -
I currently only feed Nutrafin flakes - Do pellets/tablets make any difference to constipation? Also, was going to get some Hikari sinking wafers (mainly for my catfish), and was looking at the freeze dried bloodworms and brineshrimp available. Are they good for the fish and averting constipation or not? Planning to try out the pea thing for the meantime...

Also, thankyou zoekin8yg for your responses...

*Bumping*
Can anyone help me??? Ultimately I want to know what med I need to get right now to treat my fish...

*Editing* Adding another picture - tried without the flash this time - you can see how its red in this one.

You need a bacterial med.
Get a magifying glass to see if you can see any parasites on the fish.

aww thank you for thanking me that was sweet. Its hard to tell from the pics though. Is it a sore or a cut? Antibacterial would help to stop any infections

Hey guys.
Went and asked sylvia our gourami expert and she told me its an ulcer. . If anyone's interested in the advice she gave me the thread is here. I asked her some more questions about what I should do next, so we'll see where we go from there....there's so many meds (bacterial, fungal, parasite, etc) I'm confusing myself.

Wilder, had a close look with a glass, I still cannot see anything visible on the fish....but one platy is definitely keeping up with the occasional flicking on the plants.

Thanks again for your help.

It's me again...*sigh*

All my meds and stuff arrived today. I was thinking aout not worrying about the platies because I hadn't seen any of them flick for a couple of days (I'd spent hours watching!) but then one did it right in front of me just then as if to say "LOOK! Hurry up and do something about my itchiness!" LOL. There's still no white spots on them after all this time so I'm guessing its not ich then? Although I don't know how long it takes to appear...

I got very excited for awhile, as it looked like all the redness had disappeared out of my gourami's ulcer - it was still a little bump though. But I think he's become less active, he's tending to hide at the back in his spot in a plant. I don't know if I'm paranoid, and I can't really remember how fast it was before, but his mouth seems to be going really fast - 2-3 times a second. My UGF creates a lot of surface movement so I don't think the tank can be low in oxygen - not to mention I didn't think he could be struggling to breath since he's a labyrinth fish??? He also is having really long stringy clearish poop. Which is a shame, cos all their poop seemed to go back to normal after giving them peas. Platies are still good, except for the flicking and clamping. I'm so desperate to save him. Could this mean something different?

At this point I think I'll go ahead with the Sterazin (had an extensive talk with sylvia about which meds in the other thread I linked to) - if my gourami has a parasite too I guess it might help him. After that course is completed and if he's still around with a bump (here's hoping) I'm going to treat the gourami with Myxazin.

Is it true some of the meds take a lot of the oxygen out of the water? Would I be okay with the two airstones running my UGF?
What about staining?
Also I'm about to install an extra HOB filter (minus carbon insert) - is this a good idea while I treat?
Are you supposed to do water changes while you're treating? If I did I'd do it before adding the day's dose...

Thanks...

They do take oxygen from the water, if you can turn up the pump on the UGF then do. Some meds say not to do water changes, it should say on the instructions what to do.

I have it up fairly high, but I can turn it up all the way I guess. There is no mention of water changes AT ALL (whether to do or not do) on the instructions. I wouldn't be posting if it did! I did make sure I read them first! They're Waterlife meds. I haven't started treating yet.
If anyone knows the answers to this or the questions in my post above please reply!

Thanks

Bum, sorry I havent used those meds so I dont know, sylvia might have a better idea