Gourami not eating

[MEC13]

I have a 60 gallon planted tank with a dwarf gourami, two opaline gouramis, a veil angel and 6 Von Rio flame tetras. I’ve had the gouramis and the angel for about two and half months without a problem, and the tetras were added 3 weeks ago and have been doing great. Then a week ago, my dwarf gourami suddenly stopped eating. She looks perfectly healthy otherwise, (good color, no lesions, visible parasites, or swelling) and she does swim around from time to time, but mostly hides out near the bottom. All of my water parameters are normal, and I’ve done several small water changes throughout the week to see if it would help. Two days ago, she ate one flake when I fed them in the morning, but nothing since. Then today, one of my opaline gouramis stopped eating. The angel, tetras, and the other opaline seem fine and are eating normally. I’ve been trying to research gourami diseases and figure out what’s going on with them, but I haven’t been able to figure it out. Does anyone have any suggestions?

 

[nik_n]

Check the date on the food you are feeding. The food might be old and expired. I would suggest feeding them blood worms frozen or live. My gouramis usually go crazy for them. Defrost the cube first and spread them around the tank so some fall to the bottom for the gouramis.

This could be a parasite infection or something internal. I'm not sure but I have had fish in the past die in a similar way. Add some catappa leaves, they will lower the ph and darken the water but I will benefit the fish. If this doesn't help you could try medicating.

 

[MEC13]

Check the date on the food you are feeding. The food might be old and expired. I would suggest feeding them blood worms frozen or live. My gouramis usually go crazy for them. Defrost the cube first and spread them around the tank so some fall to the bottom for the gouramis.

This could be a parasite infection or something internal. I'm not sure but I have had fish in the past die in a similar way. Add some catappa leaves, they will lower the ph and darken the water but I will benefit the fish. If this doesn't help you could try medicating.

I’m currently feeding a big variety of frozen and freeze dried foods, as well as crisps, pellets, and flakes, all of which were purchased within the past few months. None are out of date. I haven’t tried blood worms yet (except the freeze dried ones that just float) as I haven’t been able to find them at my local PetSmart. I’m going to look for them again and I’ll look into the cattapa leaves as well. Do you know what medication I could try? I have some methylene blue that I can use to do a dip if that would help.

 

[MEC13]

I wanted to update this post in case it could help someone else. On 4/16, my gourami was looking bloated and swimming sideways at the top of the tank. I was pretty sure she wasn’t going to make it, but I ran out and got a 10 gallon tank to set up as a quarantine tank and some aquarium salt (I couldn’t find any medications at the store and ordering it was going to take too long). I moved her into the new tank and slowly increased the salt over the next few days during 25% water changes. After 2-3 days she was swimming normally again and by the 5th day she was eating normally again. She has now been eating consistently for a week. My opaline gouramis are back to eating normally too. I finally found some frozen bloodworms and they really like those. I’m not sure what was wrong, may have been an internal parasite or something, but they all managed to shake it with the salt and regular water changes. I’m on the search for catappa leaves, but haven’t found them so far, I may have to order those. Thanks nik_n for your help!