Sick gourami

[Love Animals]

Hi all, I have a dwarf gourami which has stopped eating for two days. There is a slight bulge to its stomach and has white stringy poo, so I'm thinking either constipation or internal parasites? It has lost colour as well but still swimming fine. Maybe some pineconing but not sure about that hoping it not dropsy which I been reading about. What is my best course of action? What do I try first, do I quarantine it? I have in the tank neons, danios and another dwarf gourami, they are all fine. I clean the tank weekly with about a 40% water change and gravel clean once a fortnight, none of my water parameters have changed. I live a long way from town so any home remedies would be appreciated. Thanks in advance.

[BikBok]

yes I would certainly quarantine and add some uniodised salt such as rock salt to the water. You could try a deshelled squashed pea which would help if he was constipated but if he's not eating he may not take it. Do you have any epsom salts.. they can also help with constipation and bloat. Garlic for parasites might help but all as a temp measure until you can get some meds form a LFS.

[Love Animals]

Thanks, I think I will head into town..the things we do for our animals. Sorry for my lack of knowledge, whats LFS?

[SamH]

Sorry for my lack of knowledge, whats LFS?

Local Fish Store.

HTH 8) (Hope that helps)

[Love Animals]

Yeah duh, thanks

Ok I'll go in and grab some gear and some meds and see what happens, hoping it not this idovirus that I been reading about apparantly it in 25% of dwarf gouramis

[Love Animals]

Ok I have now done a 60% water change, given the non-sickies some garlic soaked pea, and my sick one I have given it a bath in some epsom salts. I have some pimafix from the shop, the lady at shop who told me not to quarantine cause the whole tank needs treating as she thought it was a bacterial infection. Whats the thoughts? It not going to hurt if I dose the tank is it, better to be safe than sorry?

[BikBok]

it's hard to know what to do when we're not exactly sure about the cuase of fishy sickness. I usually quarantine the sick ones for three reasons.. I can treat the sick one more aggressively, lessen the risk that other fish get sick plus it's chepaer to treat a smaller volume of water and the water changes arn't as time consuming. Sometimes I will treat the main tank simultaneously but less aggressively.

But it doesn't hurt to treat the whole tank if you know what's wrong. If it is bacterial I would have thought something like furan2 would have been better. Pimafix is primarily an antifungal although the bottle does say it is for bacterial as well.. just not sure how potent the antibacterial porperties would be. I've got aguppy in QT right now with pimafix for torn tail that wasn't healing, so I'll be watching to see how helpful the pimafix is as it's the first time I've used it.

Anyway, good luck with this. I had heard that dwarf gouramis can be hard to keep alive but my two are doing fine so far, despite one almost killing himself twice!