Cindylittle2001

However I cannot use that stuff because in researching bettas, gouramies, and paradise gouramies cannot handle that medication. I isolated my dwarf and gave him maracyn-two. The hole is near the rear of his body. My other dwarf is looking bloated which I never noticed before. pH in Florida well water is always on the high side 8.0 but these little guys have been with me for many water changes and seemed to have adapted. Now I am worried. I had a cloudy aquarium due to overfeeding algee wafers for 2 weeks just before this and have changed the water a lot. Water conditions are finally good. Ideas? cindylittle2001

Lucy

Hi Cindy Welcome to Fish Lore

You should to start your own thread on this since, as you said, the medication would be different with these two types of fish. Also, you'll get more personalized advice concerning your particular problem and fish.

Usually bloating (as long as the scales are not sticking out) is a sign of constipation. A good remedy for this is to feed your fish bits (smaller than the size of their eye) of frozen thawed peas.

I hope this helps, good luck, I hope your fish feels better soon.

sirdarksol

Welcome to Fishlore!
Thanks, Lucy. I've split this thread off into its own so it will get more attention.

Lucy

Your welcome and lol, thank you for moving this, sir! I love the mods here.

susitna-flower

Gouramis often get ulcers or tumors. Many come from the breeders with parasites which will cause this. My first suggestion is a parasite medication, followed with Maracyn-two to help with the ulcers, but depending on space and the other fish tank mates, you should probably put them in a hospital tank to treat them....

Cindylittle2001

Thank you Agel - one has an ulcer the other is bloated. I have the one with the ulcer alone in a hospital tank with Maracyn-two. I went to the pet store and no parasite medicines met with the physical descriptions I see. Just before ulcers showed up the isolated gourami had white stringy poops hanging from him. I thought it might be bacterial.

Then again can fish get internal worms?

Still in my community tank is the bloated gourami and actually, I have had a bloated Platy who has been fat for months and months. At first I thought she was pregnant. She was skinny when I bought her in Jan. A new fish - a molly had dropsy in early February and I pulled it as soon as her scales protrueded and treated the community tank for Dropsy. The platy looked like she lost weight. Now she is fat and round again.

I don't think I am in the clear yet.

Thanks for all your help!

Cindy

COBettaCouple

That sounds like a symptom of internal parasites and bloating can be a symptom of them as well. Parasite Clear or Clout would be what I'd treat that Gourami with.

Cindylittle2001

CONCLUSION:
Hi thank you CoBetaCouple and Agel. The result is that both gouramis died. But I had concerns about the rest of my tank. I took the second dead gourami to the pet store and had an expert look at it. She says it was bloated. She believes the primary culpret was parasites. I had treated the community tank a week ago with quick cure and my sick tank too. Then I began Myracyn II on the sick tank, only to stop and start with a parasite general cure by API, but it was too late.

CoBetaCouple and Agel were right about using parasite meds with the following Active ingredients: praziquantel and metronidazole which can be found in API General Cure medication which I found at Petsmart or in Jungle Labs Parasite Clear.

The bloating which confused me because although one fish had another I started seeing others begin to bloat up. It is a bacterial infection called Aeromonas, Pseudomonas which is responsible for fin and tail rot, skin ulcers, swollen abdomen (dropsy), bulging eyes (pop-eye), red fins and skin. This bacterial infection and MOST bacterial infections are CAUSED BY parasites. I big OH to me!

I am treating my 45 gallon tank with their final parasite dose. Then I am transferring the whole population out to a temporary tank. Then I will completely clean out the tank eliminating bacteria and parasites from this georgious tank. I will let it cycle and in the meantime medicate the entire population with a followup series of antibiotics (erithromycin).

From now on every new fish or plant I get will be treated with a gereral cure for parasites and antibiotics before mixing them with my healthy long-standing fish.

I hope this posts helps others and thank you fellow fish mates!

Cindy

COBettaCouple

I'm sorry that you lost them. I would recommend just putting new fish into a quarantine tank for 3 weeks to see if they show signs of illness. It's best not to give meds if you don't have fish that are sick, they can quickly develop immunity to them.

Lucy

I'm so sorry you lost the little guys.