Do fish get depressed?

[Funkytown]

Hey guys,

I've got a dwarf gourami that's looking a little off-colour. As I said in another post, he no longer swims around as a dwarf gourami should, but "faces" up all the time, meandering around with just his "side" fins, and not getting his tail into it. It doesn't look good, and I assumed he was on a downward spiral to doom, but it's been a few days and he hasn't really deteriorated to my eye. He manages to pick him self up off the ground at feeding time, but doesn't eat much.

He's been in the tank about a month, and survived the tail end of the cycling process fine. He was looking good! Then I added some platties and a bristlenose, and after a few days of getting a bit of his food eaten from in front of him by the energetic platties, he started looking not-so-hot. He was the only mid-upper level fish in the tank before this, so he pretty much had the place to himself, and now he has to share the space, but I haven't seen any conflicts...

It was suggested that he might be depressed, and a like-species tankmate might be what he needs. It IS a small tank, but I haven't exactly packed it out, and there might be space for a Mrs Gourami, but I want to make sure that this IS in fact the problem. So...

Do fish get depressed? As he doesn't have a scruffy beard and remain in his bathrobe all day, how can I tell if he's really depressed?

Is it more likely that he's sick with something?

What should I do?

Thanks,

Brian

[northland chic]

Fish do get depressed, we had our little knife fish in with our oscars, he just sat under the log all day. The other day we moved knifee out and the little oscar just sat by the entrance of the cave sulking for over a day, only just coming back to his normal self now. I have also had depressed angels, one when her partner died she lost all love of life. Another when i had 2 females in with one male and he picked the yellow one, stripey was just never the same. Tried getting her a new partner but she just wasn't interested, rejection is hard to take.

[mistymu05]

i think my first male betta has depression too - he just sits on the bottom of the tank - scaring me into thinking a couple of times he must be dead - he used to actively swim around but then he had to share his tank with a gold fish for a short time and since then he just seems to have given up - the goldfish is no longer in with him and i even moved the betta to a new tank and still he doesnt move alot - i even put a female in with him and even tho he was excited for a short while he just went back to lying on his side in the tank and only moving in short bursts and when it was feeding time and even then he didnt always move!!!!

he doesnt appear to have any diseases so i really dont know what to do now..........

[Caryl]

Fish certainly get depressed, especially when they are on their own (apart from some species which like it that way) or missing their shoal if they are a shoaling fish.

If there is no other sign of illness I would try a mate since he temporarily perked up when the other fish was introduced. Perhaps a Mrs gourami is just what he needs.

[suphew]

I had similar problems with a few of my fish a few years ago, tried all sorts of treatments, even went to the vet and got some antibiotics. They had problems swimming (just sat round alot), poor color, did eat ok, started getting fat bellies. In the end I discovered that it was intestinal (sp?) worms, some of them died before I treated them for worms but the rest lived long healthy lives. The ones that died took 3-4 months to die, I guess the worms were eating all the food that the fish had eaten so that even through they looked fat, they wasted away.

To treat for worms, dog worming tablet ground into their food works.