Help! Gray Spots on Neon Blue Dwarf Gourami and Boesmani Rainbowfish.

• Ammonia: 0
• Nitrite: 0
• Nitrate: 5-10
• Temperature: 25°C
• pH: 7

Colin_T said:

The gourami has a bacterial infection along its back, which has destroyed the tissue on the dorsal fin. You will need a broad spectrum medication that kills bacteria (preferably not an antibiotic) to treat it.

The rainbowfish has a few scales missing. This could be a minor injury and a couple of scales pulled out. Or it could be the start of an ulcer. Monitor the fish and if it develops a small red bump with a white bit in the middle (looks like a pimple), then it's an ulcer, which is often associated with Fish TB. But see how it goes and post more pictures if it changes.

Rainbowfish need lots of plant matter in their diet and at least half their diet should be plant based.

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If you have a quarantine tank, treat the gourami in that. Otherwise treat the main tank.

To work out the volume of water in the tank:
measure length x width x height in cm.
divide by 1000.
= volume in litres.

There are 3.785 litres in a US Gallon
There are 4.5 litres in a UK gallon

When you measure the height, measure from the top of the substrate to the top of the water level.

If you have big rocks or driftwood in the tank, remove these before measuring the height of the water level so you get a more accurate water volume.

You can use a permanent marker to draw a line on the tank at the water level and put down how many litres are in the tank at that level.

There is a calculator/ converter in the "FishForum.net Calculator" under "Useful Links" at the bottom of this page that will let you convert litres to gallons if you need it.

Remove carbon from the filter before treating with chemicals or it will adsorb the medication and stop it working. You do not need to remove the carbon if you use salt.

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If you have to treat the main tank, do the following before adding medication.

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 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.

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Colin_T said:

it has a bacterial infection.

the fish might be carrying the iridovirus but the damage along the back and dorsal fin is not from the iridovirus.

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Colin_T said:

sulfaple

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smoosh said:

I've been treating my dwarf gourami with sulfaplex for a week now, but things seem to be getting worse. I'm worried it might be dwarf gourami disease, but I'm not entirely sure. Here are some pictures below.

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Colin_T said:

add some salt or malachite green to the tank.

SALT
You can add rock salt (often sold as aquarium salt), swimming pool salt, or any non iodised salt (sodium chloride) to the aquarium at the dose rate of 1 heaped tablespoon per 20 litres of water. If there is no improvement after 48 hours you can double that dose rate so there is 2 heaped tablespoons of salt per 20 litres.

Keep the salt level like this for at least 2 weeks but no longer than 4 weeks otherwise kidney damage can occur. Kidney damage is more likely to occur in fish from soft water (tetras, Corydoras, angelfish, Bettas & gouramis, loaches) that are exposed to high levels of salt for an extended period of time, and is not an issue with livebearers, rainbowfish or other salt tolerant species.

The salt will not affect the beneficial filter bacteria, fish, plants, shrimp or snails.

After you use salt and the fish have recovered, you do a 10% water change each day for a week using only fresh water that has been dechlorinated. Then do a 20% water change each day for a week. Then you can do bigger water changes after that. This dilutes the salt out of the tank slowly so it doesn't harm the fish.

If you do water changes while using salt, you need to treat the new water with salt before adding it to the tank. This will keep the salt level stable in the tank and minimise stress on the fish.

When you first add salt, add the salt to a small bucket of tank water and dissolve the salt. Then slowly pour the salt water into the tank near the filter outlet. Add the salt over a couple of minutes.

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