I've had this powder blue dwarf gourami for a few weeks in a 20G long tank, heavily planted, with one female neon dwarf gourami, two honey gouramis, and three ghost shrimp, and after one week he developed a lump just above a small red spot on his side that looked like an injury that would easily heal.
I looked all over the internet and spoke to my LFS and of course all my findings suggested dwarf gourami disease or dwarf gourami iridovirus, because people tend to jump to that conclusion when it is a dwarf gourami and there is any lesion involved. I am convinced that it is neither of these because my gourami has not had any lethargy and he has been very active and eating plenty. He even loves to shoot water out the top of the tank!
After a few days, the scales covering the lump started standing up completely with red skin showing underneath. After a day or two of this, the scales fell off completely and he was left with a large red patch on his side where the lump was. At this point, my research had pointed to a bacterial infection, so I bought some Furan-2 and KanaPlex to treat him. I also got some Paraguard to protect against any secondary fungal infections.
I've put him in a 5G quarantine tank and dosed Furan-2 and fed him dried bloodworms soaked in a solution with KanaPlex. After three or four days, the lump has almost completely disappeared! The only problem is that his wound still looks terrible and doesn't seem to be healing. When looking at it from the side, I can't tell if there is fungus or if there is just decaying flesh. I'm not sure how I should continue treating this moving forward. Just this morning, he has been a little less active than usual and is a bit slow to eat, but this could be due to loneliness/stress from medication.
Ammonia: 0ppm
Nitrite: 0ppm
Nitrate: 10ppm
PH: 7.0
Temp: 78F
He is currently sitting at the top of the tank lightly breathing and isn't moving. Please help!
I looked all over the internet and spoke to my LFS and of course all my findings suggested dwarf gourami disease or dwarf gourami iridovirus, because people tend to jump to that conclusion when it is a dwarf gourami and there is any lesion involved. I am convinced that it is neither of these because my gourami has not had any lethargy and he has been very active and eating plenty. He even loves to shoot water out the top of the tank!
After a few days, the scales covering the lump started standing up completely with red skin showing underneath. After a day or two of this, the scales fell off completely and he was left with a large red patch on his side where the lump was. At this point, my research had pointed to a bacterial infection, so I bought some Furan-2 and KanaPlex to treat him. I also got some Paraguard to protect against any secondary fungal infections.
I've put him in a 5G quarantine tank and dosed Furan-2 and fed him dried bloodworms soaked in a solution with KanaPlex. After three or four days, the lump has almost completely disappeared! The only problem is that his wound still looks terrible and doesn't seem to be healing. When looking at it from the side, I can't tell if there is fungus or if there is just decaying flesh. I'm not sure how I should continue treating this moving forward. Just this morning, he has been a little less active than usual and is a bit slow to eat, but this could be due to loneliness/stress from medication.
Ammonia: 0ppm
Nitrite: 0ppm
Nitrate: 10ppm
PH: 7.0
Temp: 78F
He is currently sitting at the top of the tank lightly breathing and isn't moving. Please help!