Possible Bloat???

Tank

What is the water volume of the tank? 20 gallons
How long has the tank been running? About 4.5 months
Does it have a filter? Yes
Does it have a heater? Yes
What is the water temperature? 78-80
What is the entire stocking of this tank? 1 powder blue dwarf gourami 2 Dalmatian mollies 4 guppies 4 black skirt tetra 1 bn pleco

Maintenance
How often do you change the water? Once weekly
How much of the water do you change? 50%
What do you use to treat your water? Seachem prime
Do you vacuum the substrate or just the water? Substrate

*Parameters - Very Important
Did you cycle your tank before adding fish? I thought so at the time but was ill informed and performed a fish in cycle. It is now cycled
What do you use to test the water? API Freshwater Master test kit
What are your parameters? We need to know the exact numbers, not just “fine” or “safe”.

Ammonia: 0
Nitrite: 0
Nitrate: 10
pH: 8.0

Feeding
How often do you feed your fish? Once daily
How much do you feed your fish? Little less than a pinch
What brand of food do you feed your fish? Tetra or San Francisco Bay brand depending on the day
Do you feed frozen or freeze-dried foods? Frozen, flakes, and algae pellets depending on the day

Illness & Symptoms
How long have you had this fish? 4.5 months
How long ago did you first notice these symptoms? Just today
In a few words, can you explain the symptoms? My gourami was acting a little strange yesterday but I didn’t think too much about it because sometimes he does that for attention. Today however, I came home and noticed he looked a little bloated and now I’m a little worried about him. I’m not sure if it’s the beginning of dropsy or not. I had a guppy that I thought was just very very pregnant and instead of having her fry, I actually lost her a couple days ago. None of her scales pine coned at all but she was very fat. I’m worried it may be the same thing.
Have you started any treatment for the illness? No, I’m not sure if treatment is needed
Was your fish physically ill or injured upon purchase? No
How has its behavior and appearance changed, if at all? Just getting bigger

Explain your emergency situation in detail.
My gourami was acting a little strange yesterday but I didn’t think too much about it because sometimes he does that for attention. Today however, I came home and noticed he looked a little bloated and now I’m a little worried about him. I’m not sure if it’s the beginning of dropsy or not. I had a guppy that I thought was just very very pregnant and instead of having her fry, I actually lost her a couple days ago. None of her scales pine coned at all but she was very fat. I’m worried it may be the same thing

I’ve included pictures of both the guppy and the gourami.

 

It's possible that the long stringy poop is just due to constipation, it's likely that San Francisco Bay is bloodworms, which is a pretty fatty food.
Fasting your fish every couple days at least once a week to twice a week is usually good thing for them.

In the wild most fish and animals don't know when their next meal is going to come, it's usually spread out within a couple days, and different amounts of feeding.

To feed them daily is essentially to overfeed them, and spoil them, even though they should eat daily.

That guppy definitely looked like she maybe was carrying some fry, but she also probably gorged herself since most fish don't ever stop eating.
If you have food in the tank they'll get it.

Bettas, gourami and livebearers tend to be some of the biggest pigs.
Eating themselves to death.
I've had a betta before eat so much I found her dead in the morning.
While gouramis do indeed need some sort of meaty likely frozen foods, blood worms aren't the best choice.
Other members have coped it out to be the same as feeding them cake all the time..

Foods like daphina, mysis shrimp, cyclops, beefheart mixes, and other meaty but lean foods are much better alternatives.

It doesn't look like they have dropsy, also incase you aren't informed, dropsy isn't an illness, it's just a symptom.
It's nothing more than swelling/edema.
It means the layers of the skin have filled up with harmful fluids that need to be drained, or they could possibly cause death.
Some fish get over dropsy by themselves as sometimes the infection causing it heals on it's own as well.
It doesn't have a root cause, and is really random.

If you haven't fed them today, then don't, and see if there's any sort of improvement tomorrow.

You can also choose to "medicate" with epsom salts as a laxative.
If you have some really light flakes, mix a half tsp- to a tsp of epsom with a few tbsp of water, and let it soak for a short time.
Then feed them with that.

I hope that your fish are okay and not sick.
This just sorta seems like they may have been eating too many leftovers and sweets.
Fingers crossed it is..

 

It's possible that the long stringy poop is just due to constipation, it's likely that San Francisco Bay is bloodworms, which is a pretty fatty food.
Fasting your fish every couple days at least once a week to twice a week is usually good thing for them.

In the wild most fish and animals don't know when their next meal is going to come, it's usually spread out within a couple days, and different amounts of feeding.

To feed them daily is essentially to overfeed them, and spoil them, even though they should eat daily.

That guppy definitely looked like she maybe was carrying some fry, but she also probably gorged herself since most fish don't ever stop eating.
If you have food in the tank they'll get it.

Bettas, gourami and livebearers tend to be some of the biggest pigs.
Eating themselves to death.
I've had a betta before eat so much I found her dead in the morning.
While gouramis do indeed need some sort of meaty likely frozen foods, blood worms aren't the best choice.
Other members have coped it out to be the same as feeding them cake all the time..

Foods like daphina, mysis shrimp, cyclops, beefheart mixes, and other meaty but lean foods are much better alternatives.

It doesn't look like they have dropsy, also incase you aren't informed, dropsy isn't an illness, it's just a symptom.
It's nothing more than swelling/edema.
It means the layers of the skin have filled up with harmful fluids that need to be drained, or they could possibly cause death.
Some fish get over dropsy by themselves as sometimes the infection causing it heals on it's own as well.
It doesn't have a root cause, and is really random.

If you haven't fed them today, then don't, and see if there's any sort of improvement tomorrow.

You can also choose to "medicate" with epsom salts as a laxative.
If you have some really light flakes, mix a half tsp- to a tsp of epsom with a few tbsp of water, and let it soak for a short time.
Then feed them with that.

I hope that your fish are okay and not sick.
This just sorta seems like they may have been eating too many leftovers and sweets.
Fingers crossed it is..

That was so helpful, thank you!! I don’t feel them usually for at least four more hours so I won’t today and see if it improves at all.

If it doesn’t help, what would your opinion in an epsom salt be? Could it possibly help at all?

 

That was so helpful, thank you!! I don’t feel them usually for at least four more hours so I won’t today and see if it improves at all.

If it doesn’t help, what would your opinion in an epsom salt be? Could it possibly help at all?

Epsom salt is about as harmful as hydrogen peroxide imo.
I don't think it's a very strong chemical and I know some people have used it in much larger quantities.
When my betta drake had dropsy, we picked up some syringes to remove some fluid, and a big bag of epsom.
After the first few days I stopped measuring it and just put a super small handful in every day after a small water change.

It's not saline the way table salt is, so it doesn't really raise your salinity, or act the same way salty water does.
But I still didn't want to leave extra dissolved "salt" water in the tank.

He lives in a 10 gallon and I took out about 3 gallons a day or so.
I used the salt as a bath first (but for this method it's used more for removing fluid build up than fixing constipation, but it can be used this way too)

About a bit more than a tsp per quart.

Then once he was done sitting in that for about 10 minutes, I'd add more (double it) and then slowly mix that back into his 10 gallon so it's more diluted.

Using it to soak in the food gets it internally ingested and allows for it to go through their system more than if they just "inhale" while they breathe.

You could even soak the other foods too, it doesn't just have to be flakes. I just suggested the flakes since they're the lightest food and they don't expand really in water, like some pellets do.
My bugbite pellets probably get twice the size in a few hours, so if a small fish swallows a whole one, it expands in their stomach causing massive bloating and a bit of constipation.

People say stringy, and especially long poops, means the fish is likely constipated.
Since we usually all take short poops that are thicker. Fish included xD


I know that measurments of chemicals added vary by person to person as well, someone may have experience and say a whole tbs or more of salt in a quart is perfect and fine, others might say don't use more than half a tsp.
So I usually try to go about a happy medium with a tsp and a little more if you think you need it.

 

Epsom salt is about as harmful as hydrogen peroxide imo.
I don't think it's a very strong chemical and I know some people have used it in much larger quantities.
When my betta drake had dropsy, we picked up some syringes to remove some fluid, and a big bag of epsom.
After the first few days I stopped measuring it and just put a super small handful in every day after a small water change.

It's not saline the way table salt is, so it doesn't really raise your salinity, or act the same way salty water does.
But I still didn't want to leave extra dissolved "salt" water in the tank.

He lives in a 10 gallon and I took out about 3 gallons a day or so.
I used the salt as a bath first (but for this method it's used more for removing fluid build up than fixing constipation, but it can be used this way too)

About a bit more than a tsp per quart.

Then once he was done sitting in that for about 10 minutes, I'd add more (double it) and then slowly mix that back into his 10 gallon so it's more diluted.

Using it to soak in the food gets it internally ingested and allows for it to go through their system more than if they just "inhale" while they breathe.

You could even soak the other foods too, it doesn't just have to be flakes. I just suggested the flakes since they're the lightest food and they don't expand really in water, like some pellets do.
My bugbite pellets probably get twice the size in a few hours, so if a small fish swallows a whole one, it expands in their stomach causing massive bloating and a bit of constipation.

People say stringy, and especially long poops, means the fish is likely constipated.
Since we usually all take short poops that are thicker. Fish included xD


I know that measurments of chemicals added vary by person to person as well, someone may have experience and say a whole tbs or more of salt in a quart is perfect and fine, others might say don't use more than half a tsp.
So I usually try to go about a happy medium with a tsp and a little more if you think you need it.

So, I did a salt bath last night and he seemed like he was feeling better and was swimming around more normally. I also didn’t feed them last night in hopes that it would help.

Now all he does is sit in the cave and hardly move so I guess my next question would be, do you have any idea about how long it may take him to be back to normal?

 

It shouldn't be more than a few days, there could be something else wrong aside from bloating, so this is sort of just the start of treatment.
You don't really have to do the baths every day if you think a break would be better, but you can if you would like.
I usually gave drake a break between baths, and would just add it to his tank one day instead, I didn't want to be constantly removing him from his home.

If he continues to develop anymore symptoms be sure to note them so I and anyone else can offer any advice they have.
Is he still hiding?

 

It shouldn't be more than a few days, there could be something else wrong aside from bloating, so this is sort of just the start of treatment.
You don't really have to do the baths every day if you think a break would be better, but you can if you would like.
I usually gave drake a break between baths, and would just add it to his tank one day instead, I didn't want to be constantly removing him from his home.

If he continues to develop anymore symptoms be sure to note them so I and anyone else can offer any advice they have.
Is he still hiding?

No, he’s acting pretty normal now. I think he was still just trying to get accustomed to the lights before? The only thing that’s strange is his shape now.

I’m thinking I’ll give him a salt bath every other day so I don’t stress him out too much