zambize

My dwarf Gourami contracted ICH. He appeared to be over it but now it's back. I've been medicating religiously. Yesterday I had a hard time finding him in just a 37 gallon tank, but finally he appeared after I rustled a few plants and driftwood. But he's floating sideways a lot. He'll be at the very top sitting vertically and then his body will slowly float up to a horizontal position. He'll stay there for a while and then right himself again. He goes to the surface a lot, sometimes to get air, and then sometimes he'll leave several bubbles behind. I thought maybe he's blowing a bubble nest, I see my betta do it all the time, but he often does it out in the middle of the tank instead of in the cover of plants. And I've never heard of a fish floating sideways because he was blowing bubbles. I'm very worried that he's dying.

Zambize

Martinismommy

I'm sorry about your boy..Someone should be on tonight to give you some advice..I know nothing about that breed of fish...I am a Betta Mommy and a Saltwater person...

I hope he is doing better as I type this..

Barbrella

Sorry about your fish.

Dwarf Gouramis are very susceptible to parasites and bacterial infections, plus many seem to have a disease called Iridovirus.

There are a few different strains of the disease. The kind dwarf gouramis get seems to cause a fish who looks healthy to just stop eating, then start drifting around and die within 48 hours.

I'm not saying this is what's wrong with your gourami, but it sounds similiar to what happened to two of mine.

Do you have a small QT tank to put him in for now?

zambize

Barbrella,

My Q tank has 5 Leopard Cories and a Red-Tailed Black Shark that I recently bought so they are being Q'd. The only other tank I have that is even close to holding Tommy for a little while is a Hexagonal 5 gallon that is home to a Betta. The Betta would have to move to a small container (2.5 gallons), possibly upsetting him, and then moving Tommy would cause him stress too. I'm not sure if any of this makes sense.

I've had Tommy for several months and he never showed any difficulty until well into the Ich cycle. Now his eyes look funny. I don't remember them being as big as they are. I saw a little clouding in one of them. If he can't see maybe that would account for his lethargy and lack of equilibrium? I'm thinking maybe Pop Eye? I bought some Pop Eye meds just in case. It seems like if he were as close to his deathbed as he looked yesterday and today then he'd be long dead by now.

Nine Cardinals, 5 Rams, and 4 Otocinclus succumbed a while back, before he even showed signs of Ich. I'm hoping he's just an extraordinarily hardy Gourami and it's really Pop Eye that has him down. I have some euthanasia meds to ease him out of his suffering if it becomes apparent that he's dying. :| Maybe I should have done that already, but he's not completely behaving like other dying fish I've seen. I'll feel awful if he's dead in the morning and I could have helped him through it.... :|

Zambize