Woke Up This Morning... Gourami Lover's Spat?

[Channti]

Woke up this morning, turned on the lights in my 15 gallon tank, to find my pair of dwarf gourami at opposite ends of the tank (as usual), but neither approached the front of the glass when the lights went on... highly suspicious.

I went looking for them (quite a feat in that tank, a TON of hiding places)....

I found Bella first. My female dwarf gourami has a small cut, vertical on her body, on the right side, about 1/3 the total height of her body long. It looked as thought it had bled at some point but had healed up over the few hours before I turned on the lights. It doesn't look to be serious... just a minor surface thing.

Boris was more difficult to find. Once I found him, I coaxed him to the front of the tank so I could examine him. His left side, below his mouth, about where his stomach is(?) had a small cut (about 1/3 the size of Bella's cut) but it had a scab on it. Only about the size of a pin head, but a scab for sure. Still didn't look very serious though.

Neither has been behaving any differently after I'd coaxed them out and checked them out. Both have been happily swimming around and as inquisitive as always.

I added melafix and pimafix to the tank the second I noticed it, as well as a cap ful of my water conditioner as it's supposed to help with restoring slimecoat. The tank was completely cleaned (as in... 90% water change on Sunday as it was moved to a new location), so I'm not too worried about it getting infected. The only thing I've done differently with the tank besides the move was adding blanched zuchinni and cucumber slices every couple days (removing after six hours) for my otocinclus to eat (as they've cleaned me right out of algae and they refuse to eat algae tabs). I know the gourami have been tucking into the zuchinni and cucumber (or at least Boris has, but I'm certain Bella has gotten her fair share too).

Is there anything I can do for them besides Melafix/Pimafix and water conditioner? Is there something better that I should be using as opposed to water conditioner, Melafix and Pimafix?


15 gallon tankmates:
1 dalmation molly
4 neon tetra
6 panda corydora
4 otocinclus affinis

Filtered with:
AquaTech 10-20
AquaClear 20 (Mini) -- (Cycling for new tank)

 

[BackToTheFishes]

Are there any signs of nesting yet? And a friend of mine had a mollys in with her dwarfs and they bullied a male to death,not sure why,and not sure if thats whats going on with yours,just a thing to keep an eye on

 

[Channti]

My molly is dumb as a brick. She's totally incapable of hurting anything. I've been keeping a close eye on her, and she completely ignores the other fish in the tank.

No signs of nesting that I've seen. I've been keeping my eyes open for a bubblenest (my bettas build them frequently, so I know what to look for), but nothing yet. Boris was a little nippy with Bella at first (probably just trying to establish that he was alpha and she had to do as he wanted), but I'd only ever seen him lightly nip her tail; there's never been any real damage to either of them. They've been in the tank together for about two weeks now. I swore I'd never buy Dwarf Gourami again after losing three to DGD, but I saw these in one of my favourite LFS's (a very high-end store), and every-last-single-gourami in that tank was active, showing healthy colour, not showing any sign of disease, with all of them having completely undamaged feelers.... a very rare sight in my area, so I couldn't resist... And because it was "Fish day" when they have "2 for $x, 3 for $x" where you get your second and third fish for next to nothing, I bought a pair for just slightly more than I would have paid for one male. It's only been recently that he allows her to explore the entire of the tank as opposed to the right most heavily planted corner. I just assumed this behaviour was down to establishing that Boris was in charge, and the pre-relationship to breeding.

As long as they were both eating and showing healthy colours, I wasn't too worried.

Melafix, Pimafix and Water Conditioner (to help with slime coat), is there anything else I can do?

 

[Channti]

Well....
24 hours later, about 48 hours after I noticed the original injuries.

Boris and Bella are acting totally normal now.

Bella's cut is only visible if you KNOW it's there and look really closely. She appears to be healing up nicely and is continuing to exhibit her normal (extra-large) appetite, so I'm certain she'll recover fully.

Boris's wounds will take a little longer to heal up. His "wound" actually looks more like three separate cuts in a triangle (based on how it's healing). It looks like it's healing up nicely. The cut itself has changed colour to a more bruise-like colouring, as though its slowly healing.

I'm continuing to add Melafix, Pimafix and Water conditioner daily to the tank until I no longer see any injury. I'm due to have a water change Sunday night, but I've been discouraged from putting my hands in the tank due to some meds I'm on from an allergic reaction... so I'm thinking I'll supervise my little brother while he does it (he's 16... so he should be capable).

Looks like Boris and Bella are going to make a full recovery! (provided there are no more lover's spats before they both finish healing).

 

[Channti]

update:
Bella's looking really healthy.

Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for Boris. I found him dead this morning. Based on the bruising around his body, I'm going to say that he had some internal bleeding going on that we couldn't see. It's a shame... but there wasn't really anything I could have done for him anyway.