Help! Honey gouramis unwell

[Obsessed with fish]

I just want to concur with the others about the water changes. The lower you can get the nitrates, the better.
And also that hiding is a natural behavior for a new fish. They need time to adjust to their new surroundings. Honeys can be pretty mild mannered to begin with.

You might want to get into the habit of quarantining new fish before adding them with your other fish. You never know what pathogens they might be carrying that could be transferred to your other fish.
I run a spare sponge filter in one of my tanks that will be pre cycled if I need to transfer it to a quarantine tank. I also add fast growing floating plants to the QT to help water quality. (Honeys need floating plants anyways). Plus some plastic plants and pvc pipe fittings for them to explore and hide in. The floating plants grow so fast that you always have plenty to spare. So you can throw those away at the end of the quarantine. The plastic can be easily disinfected.
4-6 weeks is a long enough quarantine period for any possible pathogens to run their course. It doesn't have to take up a lot of space either. 10 gallons is big enough to be a temporary home for a couple of honeys. Key word being temporary.

Thankyou, i will probably fet a hospital tank when i have money, i will purchase some floating plants

 

[Obsessed with fish]

Wait. There is one important question here. Are these honeys male or female?

One male and one female

 

[Obsessed with fish]

And what colour are they?
Natural honeys are golden tan male, beige females.
The man made yellow variant, males and females look almost the same.
Red honeys aren't honeys, they're usually thick lipped gouramis.

Defiently honey gouramis, one is golden and the other is golden-beige.

 

[Obsessed with fish]

A clarification on nitrates. Ammonia, nitrite and nitrate are toxic to fish, period. They work differently, but all three are still toxic. Fish do not acclimate to high nitrates, at any rate not beneficially. Nitrate is slower acting, and it affects some species more than others. Fish are more likely to die from being weakened and succumbing to something else (such as disease) rather than dying from the high nitrates directly, if that makes sense.

Cichlids have problems with nitrates more than some fish. The cichlid sites are now advising that it is nitrate that is largely responsible for hole in the head (hexamina), and suggest keeping nitrates well below 20 ppm.

Nitrates in tropical water courses are zero or so close they might as well be zero. This is the water the fish evolved in. The lower the nitrate in the aquarium, the better. But fish do not acclimate to it, they slowly weaken and die from it.

Thankyou, i will keep my nitrates as low as possible

 

[sharkweek178]

One male and one female

Ok good. Two males could be a problem. Another female or two could be good.

 

[Obsessed with fish]

Ok good. Two males could be a problem. Another female or two could be good.

In the future i may get more

 

[Obsessed with fish]

I bought two honey gouramis yesterday, and just now i found one under a rock dead, my question is:

Do i need another honey gourami or will it do fine on its own?

How and why did the the honey gourami go under a heavy rock

 

[CaptainBarnicles]

How big is your tank?

 

[Obsessed with fish]

How big is your tank?

either 23 or 25 gallons

 

[Obsessed with fish]

How big is your tank?

Btw one of the honey gouramis was found dead under a rock, i am not sure how it got under the rock. Should i buy another gourami and should i remove or reposition the rock?

 

[Colin_T]

Do you have any pictures of the dead fish, and also the remaining ones so we can check them for disease?

Dead fish drift around the tank until they get stuck somewhere.

Don't add more fish for at least one month. If there is a disease issue, it will be made worse by adding more (possibly infected) fish to a tank that has had a recent death.

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If a fish ever dies in an aquarium, do the following.
Test the water for ammonia, nitrite, nitrate and pH.

Wipe the inside of the glass down with a clean fish sponge. This removes the biofilm on the glass and the biofilm will contain lots of harmful bacteria, fungus, protozoans and various other microscopic life forms.

Do a 75% water change and gravel clean the substrate every day for a week. The water changes and gravel cleaning will reduce the number of disease organisms in the water and provide a cleaner environment for the fish to recover in. It also removes a lot of the gunk and this means any medication can work on treating the fish instead of being wasted killing the pathogens in the gunk.
Make sure any new water is free of chlorine/ chloramine before it is added to the tank.

Clean the filter if it hasn't been done in the last 2 weeks. However, if the filter is less than 6 weeks old, do not clean it. Wash the filter materials/ media in a bucket of tank water and re-use the media. Tip the bucket of dirty water on the garden/ lawn. Cleaning the filter means less gunk and cleaner water with fewer pathogens so any medication (if needed) will work more effectively on the fish.

 

[Obsessed with fish]

Do you have any pictures of the dead fish, and also the remaining ones so we can check them for disease?

Dead fish drift around the tank until they get stuck somewhere.

Don't add more fish for at least one month. If there is a disease issue, it will be made worse by adding more (possibly infected) fish to a tank that has had a recent death.

----------------------

If a fish ever dies in an aquarium, do the following.
Test the water for ammonia, nitrite, nitrate and pH.

Wipe the inside of the glass down with a clean fish sponge. This removes the biofilm on the glass and the biofilm will contain lots of harmful bacteria, fungus, protozoans and various other microscopic life forms.

Do a 75% water change and gravel clean the substrate every day for a week. The water changes and gravel cleaning will reduce the number of disease organisms in the water and provide a cleaner environment for the fish to recover in. It also removes a lot of the gunk and this means any medication can work on treating the fish instead of being wasted killing the pathogens in the gunk.
Make sure any new water is free of chlorine/ chloramine before it is added to the tank.

Clean the filter if it hasn't been done in the last 2 weeks. However, if the filter is less than 6 weeks old, do not clean it. Wash the filter materials/ media in a bucket of tank water and re-use the media. Tip the bucket of dirty water on the garden/ lawn. Cleaning the filter means less gunk and cleaner water with fewer pathogens so any medication (if needed) will work more effectively on the fish.

Thankyou for your help, I will do all of this. I have already disposed the fish so I have no photos, l will do everything you said right now. Thankyou so much!

 

[Obsessed with fish]

Do you have any pictures of the dead fish, and also the remaining ones so we can check them for disease?

Dead fish drift around the tank until they get stuck somewhere.

Don't add more fish for at least one month. If there is a disease issue, it will be made worse by adding more (possibly infected) fish to a tank that has had a recent death.

----------------------

If a fish ever dies in an aquarium, do the following.
Test the water for ammonia, nitrite, nitrate and pH.

Wipe the inside of the glass down with a clean fish sponge. This removes the biofilm on the glass and the biofilm will contain lots of harmful bacteria, fungus, protozoans and various other microscopic life forms.

Do a 75% water change and gravel clean the substrate every day for a week. The water changes and gravel cleaning will reduce the number of disease organisms in the water and provide a cleaner environment for the fish to recover in. It also removes a lot of the gunk and this means any medication can work on treating the fish instead of being wasted killing the pathogens in the gunk.
Make sure any new water is free of chlorine/ chloramine before it is added to the tank.

Clean the filter if it hasn't been done in the last 2 weeks. However, if the filter is less than 6 weeks old, do not clean it. Wash the filter materials/ media in a bucket of tank water and re-use the media. Tip the bucket of dirty water on the garden/ lawn. Cleaning the filter means less gunk and cleaner water with fewer pathogens so any medication (if needed) will work more effectively on the fish.

Btw the fish was really under the rock, like he had dug under the rock to get under the rock.

 

[Obsessed with fish]

Do you have any pictures of the dead fish, and also the remaining ones so we can check them for disease?

Dead fish drift around the tank until they get stuck somewhere.

Don't add more fish for at least one month. If there is a disease issue, it will be made worse by adding more (possibly infected) fish to a tank that has had a recent death.

----------------------

If a fish ever dies in an aquarium, do the following.
Test the water for ammonia, nitrite, nitrate and pH.

Wipe the inside of the glass down with a clean fish sponge. This removes the biofilm on the glass and the biofilm will contain lots of harmful bacteria, fungus, protozoans and various other microscopic life forms.

Do a 75% water change and gravel clean the substrate every day for a week. The water changes and gravel cleaning will reduce the number of disease organisms in the water and provide a cleaner environment for the fish to recover in. It also removes a lot of the gunk and this means any medication can work on treating the fish instead of being wasted killing the pathogens in the gunk.
Make sure any new water is free of chlorine/ chloramine before it is added to the tank.

Clean the filter if it hasn't been done in the last 2 weeks. However, if the filter is less than 6 weeks old, do not clean it. Wash the filter materials/ media in a bucket of tank water and re-use the media. Tip the bucket of dirty water on the garden/ lawn. Cleaning the filter means less gunk and cleaner water with fewer pathogens so any medication (if needed) will work more effectively on the fish.

I know why it died, my heater was not plugged in and my temp was at 19 degrees celcius, could this of been tge reason?

 

[GaryE]

The reason... it could have been temperature shock. That's a cool tank for a gourami. It could have been disease, transport to the store, stress in the store, being bagged... fish are complex.

It's very (too) common for newly arrived fish to be ill.

Watch the survivor like a hawk. I have seen parasite infested fish jam themselves up against decor in an effort to scratch at the itch. If the fish moved sand to get wedged under the rock, that could be the case as gouramis are not diggers.