EMERGENCY!! GOURAMI HAD SEIZURE AND SURVIVED

Hi, so my dwarf gourami (Gideon) has early stage ich and I’ve been treating the tank for the past two days. All my mollies and otos in here are fine which is a good sign but Gideon has been effected by it in the usual ways, he’s been sluggish and hasn’t eaten much. This morning when I turned the light on, he started spinning in circles rapidly and then started darting across the tank uncontrollably. It definitely looked like a seizure which I read can be caused by ich. He survived though, and has been floating on the surface of the tank, getting stuck on his hornwort which I’ve gently moved to help him out of, getting stuck on the heater and the filter, but he is still alive. He also had a second seizure about 15 minutes ago and he’s still alive to this moment. It seems that he can’t move his tail fin much and it takes him a lot of effort to do so but he kind of can when it’s absolutely necessary. He’s currently sitting in between the branches of his hornwort with the infant molly that was apparently born last night. His mouth is moving and he can move his side fins. I have no clue what to do, he’s my baby and I want to help him in any way I can because he’s clearly being so strong and holding on to his life the best he can.

White spot doesn't cause fish to spin out of control. That is normally caused by an infection in the brain. It can be a protozoan, viral or bacterial infection (usually protozoan) and there is no cure. Euthanise the fish and do a massive water change and gravel clean the substrate. Clean the filter too. This will reduce the risk of the other fishes getting an infection in their brain.

But I thought ich was a protozoan?

Colin_T said:

White spot doesn't cause fish to spin out of control. That is normally caused by an infection in the brain. It can be a protozoan, viral or bacterial infection (usually protozoan) and there is no cure. Euthanise the fish and do a massive water change and gravel clean the substrate. Clean the filter too. This will reduce the risk of the other fishes getting an infection in their brain.

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I did a water change of half my 20G tank two days ago, and I also cleaned the gravel and substrate at the same time. Do I need to do it again?

Ichthyophthirius is a protozoan parasite but there are hundreds of different types of protozoa and some affect the inside of fish and others affect the outside. The protozoa that infect the brain are different to white spot protozoa.

If you did a water change and gravel clean the other day it should be ok. However, i like to do a big water change and gravel clean any time a fish dies to reduce anything it may have left behind.

How do your fish normally behave when you turn the light on? Did he truly look out of control in his swimming, as in he could not orient himself correctly, or was the swimming simply energetic and erratic?

A sudden on/off of a light can really stress fish out and cause them to frantically dart around. If your fish don't normally do this, it may be worth considering whether this period of higher baseline level stress (illness and medication) may be lowering that threshold and causing your fish to respond to stress triggers that they normally wouldn't care about. If his swimming was truly uncontrolled and it looked like he couldn't keep himself up straight, then there's cause for concern about a deeper-level issue.

Be ready with your camera in case he does it again. A video would be really helpful here.

Hi, sorry to hear you're having these issues!

More info, and yes, even more ideally, video of the fish and tank would be really helpful here.

To get a better idea of what's going on, can you give us as much info about what medication you're using to treat the suspected white spot, and what made you suspect white spot/what new fish may have introduced white spot to your tank, etc, and more about the tank in general. Luckily there's a forum template for this, which I'll copy paste below. If you could copy/paste that template into your next post and fill out as much information as possible please, including the info as soon as you noticed signs of a problem in the tank, not just the gourami's most recent stuff, but how the tank was before, when you last adding anything new to the tank, etc.

Personally, I'm concerned that the fish may be reacting badly to whatever medication you've added, and I'd do an emergency W/C to dilute it out somewhat. Some products sold for fish aren't so great, and some commonly used ones contain aloe, which has been shown to be bad for labyrinth fish like gourami, so I'd change 40-50% of the total water volume ASAP. I'd stop the white spot medication for the moment, refill only with clean fresh water that has been treated with water conditioner, and temperature matched to the tank temp.

If you do the water change first, it won't do any harm to the fish, but might do a lot to help, and buy more time.
Then fill out the info for the template below. Skip any Q's you don't know the answers too, but for everything else, the more detail we have, the better chances we can figure out what's wrong and what to do next. If you can get more photos, or even better, a video, just note that the video upload function here doesn't work, but if you upload to youtube, you can link it here!

You may cut and paste the template below and submit in your post:

Request Help

Tank size:
tank age:
pH:
ammonia:
nitrite:
nitrate:
kH:
gH:
tank temp:


Fish Symptoms (include full description including lesion, color, location, fish behavior):

Volume and Frequency of water changes:

Chemical Additives or Media in your tank:

Tank inhabitants:

Recent additions to your tank (living or decoration):

Exposure to chemicals:

Digital photo (include if possible):

Seisage said:

How do your fish normally behave when you turn the light on? Did he truly look out of control in his swimming, as in he could not orient himself correctly, or was the swimming simply energetic and erratic?

A sudden on/off of a light can really stress fish out and cause them to frantically dart around. If your fish don't normally do this, it may be worth considering whether this period of higher baseline level stress (illness and medication) may be lowering that threshold and causing your fish to respond to stress triggers that they normally wouldn't care about. If his swimming was truly uncontrolled and it looked like he couldn't keep himself up straight, then there's cause for concern about a deeper-level issue.

Be ready with your camera in case he does it again. A video would be really helpful here.

Click to expand...

It was most definitely a full blown seizure, he was upside down, sideways, facing up, all over the place along with severe spasming in his mouth and gills.

Colin_T said:

Ichthyophthirius is a protozoan parasite but there are hundreds of different types of protozoa and some affect the inside of fish and others affect the outside. The protozoa that infect the brain are different to white spot protozoa.

If you did a water change and gravel clean the other day it should be ok. However, i like to do a big water change and gravel clean any time a fish dies to reduce anything it may have left behind.

Click to expand...

Ah I see, thank you for informing me

Colin_T said:

Ichthyophthirius is a protozoan parasite but there are hundreds of different types of protozoa and some affect the inside of fish and others affect the outside. The protozoa that infect the brain are different to white spot protozoa.

If you did a water change and gravel clean the other day it should be ok. However, i like to do a big water change and gravel clean any time a fish dies to reduce anything it may have left behind.

Click to expand...

Ah I see, thank you for info

GothFishKeeper said:

Hi, so my dwarf gourami (Gideon) has early stage ich and I’ve been treating the tank for the past two days. All my mollies and otos in here are fine which is a good sign but Gideon has been effected by it in the usual ways, he’s been sluggish and hasn’t eaten much. This morning when I turned the light on, he started spinning in circles rapidly and then started darting across the tank uncontrollably. It definitely looked like a seizure which I read can be caused by ich. He survived though, and has been floating on the surface of the tank, getting stuck on his hornwort which I’ve gently moved to help him out of, getting stuck on the heater and the filter, but he is still alive. He also had a second seizure about 15 minutes ago and he’s still alive to this moment. It seems that he can’t move his tail fin much and it takes him a lot of effort to do so but he kind of can when it’s absolutely necessary. He’s currently sitting in between the branches of his hornwort with the infant molly that was apparently born last night. His mouth is moving and he can move his side fins. I have no clue what to do, he’s my baby and I want to help him in any way I can because he’s clearly being so strong and holding on to his life the best he leading him to become fully paralyzed in his body and then his gills which resulted in his death. I’m so distraught by all of this because there’s nothing I could do to help him as I don’t have another tank I could’ve put him in for euthanasia. He stayed so strong and kept fighting it

Click to expand...

GothFishKeeper said:

Hi, so my dwarf gourami (Gideon) has early stage ich and I’ve been treating the tank for the past two days. All my mollies and otos in here are fine which is a good sign but Gideon has been effected by it in the usual ways, he’s been sluggish and hasn’t eaten much. This morning when I turned the light on, he started spinning in circles rapidly and then started darting across the tank uncontrollably. It definitely looked like a seizure which I read can be caused by ich. He survived though, and has been floating on the surface of the tank, getting stuck on his hornwort which I’ve gently moved to help him out of, getting stuck on the heater and the filter, but he is still alive. He also had a second seizure about 15 minutes ago and he’s still alive to this moment. It seems that he can’t move his tail fin much and it takes him a lot of effort to do so but he kind of can when it’s absolutely necessary. He’s currently sitting in between the branches of his hornwort with the infant molly that was apparently born last night. His mouth is moving and he can move his side fins. I have no clue what to do, he’s my baby and I want to help him in any way I can because he’s clearly being so strong and holding on to his life the best he can.

Click to expand...

I regret to inform everyone that Gideon passed away this morning after he had a seventh seizure, leading him to become fully paralyzed in his body and then his gills which resulted in his death. I’m so distraught by all of this because there’s nothing I could do to help him or stop his suffering as I don’t have another tank I could’ve put him in for euthanasia. He stayed so strong and kept fighting it, I could tell he wanted so badly to live. He was really enjoying life with his new tank mates and I’m heart broken by the fact that he didn’t get to stay with them for longer to meet the fry when they grow up. I know it might seem dumb to grieve so much for a fish but I loved him so much. I would literally play with him and spend quality time with him like you would a dog or a cat. I would wave my finger along the tank and he would follow me around. He would also bring the tiny loose hornwort needles to me and i would drop them on the other side of the tank and he’d retrieve them and bring it back. It was such a sight to see, he was incredibly smart for a fish, and I’m so sad that he’s gone.

GothFishKeeper said:

I know it might seem dumb to grieve so much for a fish but I loved him so much. I would literally play with him and spend quality time with him like you would a dog or a cat. I would wave my finger along the tank and he would follow me around. He would also bring the tiny loose hornwort needles to me and i would drop them on the other side of the tank and he’d retrieve them and bring it back. It was such a sight to see, he was incredibly smart for a fish, and I’m so sad that he’s gone.

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So sorry to hear that he's gone His behaviour reminds me so much of my old betta. I had quite an attachment to that fish as well.