Poorly pearl gourami, any suggestions welcome

Hi I have a very sick gourami and need so suggestions for a remedy. All water parameters ok, ammonia, nitrite,nitrates all 0, kh3, ph 7 his colour looks ok but very little movement and behaving similar to a pair of honey gouramis I lost a month ago (he came from same LFS)

Hi,
I'm not an expert, just a beginner but this is from what I learnt so far.
I don't see any visible bumps/growths outside, so I doubt it would be Dropsy, Fin/Tail/Mouth Rot, Fungus, External Parasites, Slime disease, or Ulcers.

If I had to guess then I would say it may have swim bladder problems.
Every fish has a swim bladder, it is basically a sack filled with gas, and this stops it from sinking or floating in the water. Sometimes the swim bladder gets infected, or the area around it gets infected.
The fish will then struggle to swim properly (thats what the gourami looks like).

There are many problem that can cause/affect swim bladder problems, so its probably best to take the video to your LFS or an expert, they can tell you how to help and maybe even why the fish got it. You can buy swim bladder control treatments and anti-internal bacteria treatments.

Sometimes constipation causes swim bladder problems, and adding frozen foods to the fish's diet can help.
What do you feed your fish?

However I am not an expert so I could be wrong/incorrect.
This is just what I think

aqua.land said:

Hi,
I'm not an expert, just a beginner but this is from what I learnt so far.
I don't see any visible bumps/growths outside, so I doubt it would be Dropsy, Fin/Tail/Mouth Rot, Fungus, External Parasites, Slime disease, or Ulcers.

If I had to guess then I would say it may have swim bladder problems.
Every fish has a swim bladder, it is basically a sack filled with gas, and this stops it from sinking or floating in the water. Sometimes the swim bladder gets infected, or the area around it gets infected.
The fish will then struggle to swim properly (thats what the gourami looks like).

There are many problem that can cause/affect swim bladder problems, so its probably best to take the video to your LFS or an expert, they can tell you how to help and maybe even why the fish got it. You can buy swim bladder control treatments and anti-internal bacteria treatments.

Sometimes constipation causes swim bladder problems, and adding frozen foods to the fish's diet can help.
What do you feed your fish?

However I am not an expert so I could be wrong/incorrect.
This is just what I think

Click to expand...

Hi thanks for your input, I feed flake every day day and frozen 3 or 4 times a week. I have 1 male and 3 females (2 females were a later addition from a different lfs) the original female and the male are behaving a little odd, the male significantly worse. The 2 females from the separate LFS seem fine

Chuunofish said:

Hi thanks for your input, I feed flake every day day and frozen 3 or 4 times a week. I have 1 male and 3 females (2 females were a later addition from a different lfs) the original female and the male are behaving a little odd, the male significantly worse. The 2 females from the separate LFS seem fine

Click to expand...

Hi. That's good.
If you didn't feed frozen food then I would say it could be because of that, but it is clearly not.
I'm not sure, sorry.
You could show the video at your LFS and/or buy some treatment.
Hopefully your fish gets better.

Short update, after behaving strangely for about 6 hours, poorly gourami is now in fishy heaven. Still a mystery so any advice is welcome

@Colin_T might be able to say what was wrong with it

No idea. It looks fine on the outside apart from a small red line (possibly blood) on the left gill cover under the eye.

Presumably it had an internal problem, maybe an internal bacterial infection or virus. You mention keeping honey gouramis with it and they died from a similar issue. The honey gouramis might have been kept with dwarf gouramis (Colisa lalia) at the shop and they regularly carry the Iridovirus, and while it normally produces small sores on the body, it might not in all cases.

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I would wipe the inside of the glass down with a clean fish sponge, then do a 75% water change and gravel clean the substrate every day for a week.
Make sure any new water is free of chlorine/ chloramine before it's added to the tank.

Clean the filter too.

Then wait a month before adding nay new fish and avoid getting any more labyrinth fishes (gouramis & Bettas).

If more fish develop similar symptoms and die, then post more pics and we can investigate further. Or take them to a fish vet or fish health section at the Department of Agriculture and get them to necropsy the fish.