Gourami Having Fits? Acting Crazy

[maca9]

Hi

I have an established 75g tank with some gouramis, tetras and few discus.

All fish have been and still do seem very healthy. EXCEPT my blue three spot gourami who is the oldest in the tank has over the last 2 days had "fits" of crazyness. Like he's trying to bust out of the tank. Smashing into the walls and filter etc.

These fits last up to 15 seconds - racing around the tank top and bottom. He's knocked quite a lot of scales off his head and face area doing this. To the point he has some small wounds now. Other than these self inflicted wounds he doesn't have any othr signs of stress. In fact his colour looks as good as ever!!

Any idea why??

Its as if he's snapped mentally and gone crazy and doesn't want to be confined anymore. Thats what the behaviour seems like although I doubt thats the answer

All other fish are looking great with no signs of stress.

Water ph = 6.8, Ammon = 0, Nitrite = 0, Nitrate = 7ppm, Temp = 29 celcius


Water change 30% twice per week.


Is this something gouramis get?


If it keeps up I might have to put him out of his misery becasue I'm sure its not good for the tank having a fish doing that AND have fresh wounds on his body.


Any advice would be helpful.

 

[chicklette]

Is he flashing all? Rubbing on rocks
Any white grain like salt on him? Ick
Any new fish added and how long have you had him for?
Is your pH stable?
Are any of the fish picking on him, biting his tail or anything else like that?

Your water parameters are fine so it’s can’t be that.

It sounds like he has a parasite. When they have a parasite the dart sporadically around the tank and totally freak out.

 

[WILDER]

Is the fish bloated.
Can it maintain its balance in the water.
Check the gills over to see if there pale with excess mucas or red and inflamed, they can also look like there bleeding.

 

[nicifrog]

Hi

I have an established 75g tank with some gouramis, tetras and few discus.

All fish have been and still do seem very healthy. EXCEPT my blue three spot gourami who is the oldest in the tank has over the last 2 days had "fits" of crazyness. Like he's trying to bust out of the tank. Smashing into the walls and filter etc.

These fits last up to 15 seconds - racing around the tank top and bottom. He's knocked quite a lot of scales off his head and face area doing this. To the point he has some small wounds now. Other than these self inflicted wounds he doesn't have any othr signs of stress. In fact his colour looks as good as ever!!

Any idea why??

Its as if he's snapped mentally and gone crazy and doesn't want to be confined anymore. Thats what the behaviour seems like although I doubt thats the answer

All other fish are looking great with no signs of stress.

Water ph = 6.8, Ammon = 0, Nitrite = 0, Nitrate = 7ppm, Temp = 29 celcius


Water change 30% twice per week.


Is this something gouramis get?


If it keeps up I might have to put him out of his misery becasue I'm sure its not good for the tank having a fish doing that AND have fresh wounds on his body.


Any advice would be helpful.

Our dwarf gourami does this a lot. I don't think he has a parasite. He looks fine to me, and he only does this once in a while. I think it has more to do with the fact that he is establishing his territory. We added a bunch of mollies to the tank 4 months ago and ever since then he has been doing this crazy slamming around. We even found him inside our baby tank insert. I have a 29 gallon tank. I am not sure about ph and nitrate and all that. We just have test strips that don't seem to show any problem. I do a 25% water change once a week, or at least once every 10 days. We have a dwarf gourami, one red platy, 3 mollies,
and 4 platy fry that are old enough to be mixed in with the other fish, and also one mollie fry. Oh and a rubber lipped plecostumus.

I just noticed the red platy has some very slight white fuzz on the top near the top fin. I do not like to use the tablets we have because they stain the tank, so I am using primafix? Is this safe for the fry? They are each about the size dime i would say, in length. Says to use 10 ml per 10 us gallons but because of the babies i only put in 20 ml. Seems to make the water very soapy at the top. Is this normal?
Sorry if this post is not in the right place i am not very familiar with these forums.

 

[groovitudedude]

I have two three-spotted/blue gouramis in my 100G and this never happened to me. Perhaps it's an internal parasite, which it might be since it is the only fish acting erratic.

 

[fisH2O]

I had a blue dwarf gourami which had been fine for 3 months, and just the other day I did my weekly 20% water change, using the water conditioner as usual, and hoovered the gravel, and I also decided to add some nitrate remover (which says on the bottle completely harmless to fish) and some plant food. A few hours later, the gourami looked like a nervous wreck, darting uncontrollably. I thought it must have suffered poisoning from either dirty gravel or the plant food (?), so I performed a 50% water change and hoped for the best.

The next day, more of the same, and that night it was doing loop-the-loops, swimming frantically around the tank at incredible speed, and then gasping on the bottom. It later died. I searched everywhere to try and diagnose this problem and couldn't find anything which really fitted the symptoms. All 23 other fish are still perfectly happy. I took a water sample to the local pet store and they said it was fine, which is what my own tests proved. So I have no idea what happened, and still can't find a convincing answer.

It's a 100 litre tank

 

[PeterCaulf]

I have a Black Widow Tetra that tends to swim on its side and today I saw it having a "fit" too. It was spinning on the spot along its axis as well at nose to tail. I've never seen anything like it.

After about five seconds it stopped and has been happily swiiming about since. (Albeit still on its side) Whater it is, Fishh2o, there seems to be a lot of it about!

Pete

 

[chadcornwell]

I have 4 bule 3 spot gourami. The male (I think) is doing the same thing... Racing around the tank bashing into everything going crazy...then just flops around at the bottom like he's had a stroke. Anyone figure this out yet??

 

[Ninjouzata]

I have 4 bule 3 spot gourami. The male (I think) is doing the same thing... Racing around the tank bashing into everything going crazy...then just flops around at the bottom like he's had a stroke. Anyone figure this out yet??

I think it would be best if you made your own topic and give as much info as possible (tank size, other tankmates, water parameters), you'll get more help that way. And this is from 2008

 

[DoubleDutch]

Some Gourami? What Gourami do you have and how many of each ?

 

[Discuslove]

i have had fish that do this,i always think that they are gonna hit their heads so hard they will just smash it or really badly hurt themselves but never seem to. In the end I found it to just be stress. If i didnt find a way to make them less stressed then they ended up dying

but i found by providing some more room in the tank or changing stuff up, adding some aquarium salt and making sure no body is beating them up, and the fishes favourite thing. Bloodworms

 

[Meeresstille]

I too would see this as a sign of stress! Have you added anything new recently? New fish, new decorations? New lights?
 
Have your changed anything in the room, moved the furniture, or even moved the tank to a different location? Does your tank have enough hiding places and plants? Do you have floating plants, gouramies like those! 
 
What stood out to me in your post is the temperature of 29 C, it's a little on the high end. Have you always kept it at that range or is it because of the ambient temperature of the room?
When was the last water change? I think it would be a good idea to do a water change now, maybe he's telling you something is not right with the water. There is a lot more to an aquarium's water chemistry than we can test for. I'd be doing a 50% water change, to see if that will calm him down again!

 

[PrairieSunflower]

This thread is from 2008....

 

[Meeresstille]

 

[Discuslove]

oops, oh well at least it will help incase of something happening like this again??