Honey Gourami Sitting at Bottom of Tank

[Noidstradamus]

Hello all. Just wondering if anyone can help me diagnose this. I have a honey gourami that has been hugging the bottom of the tank for a couple weeks. He still comes up to greet me and to eat. He also swims to the top and swims around intermittently them returns to the bottom. My water parameters are good. 0 Ammonia, 0 nitrite, 20ppm nitrate, pH is 7.2. 80 degrees. I was using Excel to battle BBA daily for maybe a month then I stopped when I noticed his behavior. I was using 1.25 mil daily in a 10 gallon tank. Could this by the cause? I truly hope not. Really love this little guy. Also of note, my ph started dropping for an unknown reason. Maybe bc our tap water chemistry changed. Kh went from 2 degrees to 0. Which I know can cause pH crash. Any advice would be appreciated.

 

[Essjay]

It could well be the Excel as its active ingredient is a powerful disinfectant. Now that you've stopped using it, I would do extra water changes to flush what's left out the water. Hopefully he will recover - he still looks in good colour.

We have members with very soft water out of the tap, and members who use all RO water with no KH. These members allow the pH to drop to whatever it 'wants' to be and they keep only soft water fish.