Pearl gourami competing for food?

[YellowGuppy]

I bought a young little pearl gourami a few months ago, and it's still pretty little. In the last few weeks or looks like its colours have started to fade a bit, and it got me wondering if it's underfed, thanks largely to my gluttonous guppy hoard.

Does anyone have any advice for target feeding a gourami? I've since attempted feeding it betta pellets (it spits them out) and recently I've started waiting until it's made its way to the surface before putting any food in so the guppies don't eat everything before it gets a chance.

Thanks in advance!

 

[SM1199]

Can you post a photo?

If worried about general lack of health, I would also be worried about internal and external parasites. Especially if spitting food. I lost two pearl gouramis to gill flukes and your description reminds me of what they looked like as they were going downhill. I blame myself for not taking it more seriously.

For feeding, you could try getting some very long tweezers/tongs and clamping a bunch of flake food in it and putting it near the gourami while the guppies are distracted and eating at the surface.

 

[YellowGuppy]

Can you post a photo?

If worried about general lack of health, I would also be worried about internal and external parasites. Especially if spitting food. I lost two pearl gouramis to gill flukes and your description reminds me of what they looked like as they were going downhill. I blame myself for not taking it more seriously.

For feeding, you could try getting some very long tweezers/tongs and clamping a bunch of flake food in it and putting it near the gourami while the guppies are distracted and eating at the surface.

The photos aren't great, but may be of some use:


I've dealt with camallanus before, so I was a little wary of potential for parasites. The gourami doesn't mind eating the flake food, but the pellets may have just been a little on the large side? It mostly seems to take very small bites of the flakes, and doesn't seem to be growing very quickly.

 

[SM1199]

It looks quite thin and pale. Looking at the first photo I thought for a second you had confused a sparkling gourami for a pearl gourami. Definitely needs more nutrition (can you feed some kind of bloodworms?) and a round of dewormer and fluke treatment would be in line if it was my fish.

 

[YellowGuppy]

It looks quite thin and pale. Looking at the first photo I thought for a second you had confused a sparkling gourami for a pearl gourami. Definitely needs more nutrition (can you feed some kind of bloodworms?) and a round of dewormer and fluke treatment would be in line if it was my fish.

I got a better photo today:


The biggest indicator of concern for me was that the dark line appeared faded compared to earlier. I'll dose some Prazipro and add some bloodworms tonight. Thanks!

 

[tomiyama]

How is your pearl doing? His/her black line does look faded although his/her eyes look clear and white. Is it possible to turn your tank temp up one degree every 24-48 hours to at least 75?
Pearl gourami like warmer temperatures (mine are at 79 and in the summer 80 which may be too warm for your other fish though).
With the weather turning colder in Calgary he is probably a tad chilled and thus more prone to disease if his immune system is low.

 

[YellowGuppy]

*snip I hadn't thought about temperature! Just turned it up a bit - will see how things go in the next couple days, and adjust again as needed!

 

[tomiyama]

Do only a tiny bit, no sudden changes, maybe one degree a week? Perhaps eventually have the tank @ 77 F in a couple of weeks and try that for a month. Tropical fish are sensitive to changes in temperature as they originally came from a stable environment...

 

[jinjerJOSH22]

You don’t need to be that careful there’s usually temperature changes between day and night in the wild and of course seasonal changes. As long as there isn’t a dramatic swing very suddenly, as in dropping a fish into a vastly different temperature you should be totally fine. Water also takes time to heat up.

 

[YellowGuppy]

So, good news and bad news.

The good news is that, I think, it worked. Increasing the heat and changing my feeding (I wouldn't put any food into the tank until the gourami was at the surface, causing my greedy little guppies to wait in agony!) resulted in the color coming back to the gourami, and things were looking up. I stopped questioning "Should I rehome it?" because it looked so much better.

But then yesterday it died. Lesson learned: guppies and gouramis aren't necessarily the greatest of tank mates due to their drastically different feeding rates. If someone asks, let them know.

 

[tomiyama]

Gosh so sorry .