Dwarf And Royal Blue Gourami Help!

[UncleHomer]

Alright so I have a dwarf male and female gourami, with a royal blue gourami.
Recently a pleco I bought from the pet store passed on the good old ich to my gouramis.
I treated the tank and it didnt work. They have very small amounts of ich atm so I will be retreating in a week.

Anyhoo, my gouramis have begun acting weird.
All 3 of them are always at the top of my aquarium with there mouth right at the water line or sit on the bottom of the aquarium slightly slanted. Seems as they they are eating the air also
Ive been doing frequent treated water changed and nothing seems to help.

Note tested water, very low nitrite lvls and no ammonia.


Any ideas whats wrong?

 

[diademhill]

Note tested water, very low nitrite lvls and no ammonia.


Any ideas whats wrong?

Nitrite - the fish have impaired gill function.
Do a 25% water change adding dechlorinator.
What treatment have you used? What size tank?
How long has the tank been running?

 

[UncleHomer]

Note tested water, very low nitrite lvls and no ammonia.


Any ideas whats wrong?

Nitrite - the fish have impaired gill function.
Do a 25% water change adding dechlorinator.
What treatment have you used? What size tank?
How long has the tank been running?

The tanks been been running about 3 weeks. Its a 20 gal aquariium. I have been doing regular water changes and I treat the tap water before puting into the aquarium.
Like I said the lvls of nitrite are very low, test shows a very very light pink

 

[diademhill]

Note tested water, very low nitrite lvls and no ammonia.


Any ideas whats wrong?

Nitrite - the fish have impaired gill function.
Do a 25% water change adding dechlorinator.
What treatment have you used? What size tank?
How long has the tank been running?

The tanks been been running about 3 weeks. Its a 20 gal aquariium. I have been doing regular water changes and I treat the tap water before puting into the aquarium.
Like I said the lvls of nitrite are very low, test shows a very very light pink

The nitrite should be zero - your tank hasn't fully cycled yet. Any nitrite is toxic & gouramis don't tolerate it.

 

[UncleHomer]

I understand the nitrite is toxic but almost all fish can handle very low lvls of nitrite.
I can hardly even see the pink in the test and Ive seen fish survive through almost purple lvls of nitrite.

Are gouramis super sensitive to nitrite?

 

[mikster]

your tank shouldnt be far off cycling, just keep doing small regular water changes and you should be fine.

 

[sylvia]

Royal blue and dwarf gouramies are the same species - Colisa lalia - and this fish is particularly intolerant of poor water quality. Obviously, it's been a good while since you first posted but I wanted to mention this anyway. Also, there are many fish that'll tolerate bad water conditions - including many species of gourami - but a good number will not and you should hnever take this for granted. Note that the royal blue is probably a male so you need to consider what's going to happen if/when you have two males chasing around a single female.

 

[tetras4me]

replace the filter. that is my best suggestion

 

[sylvia]

Actualy, that's something you should NEVER do. When you replace a filter (or rather the media inside), you lose the majority of the 'good' bacteria responsible for your tank's being cycled. Take them out and the whole cycle collapses - you get ammonia spikes, nitrIte spikes and, unavoidably, you get deaths. Dwarfs, especialy, can't tolerate this kind of thing and almost always die as a direct result. if they don't, the disease they'll later succumb to as a result of the stress will deffinately kill them.