nerdyaquarist

That’s fair. Filtration is just a sponge filter, no substrate. I just checked today the state of the QT and noticed the top half of the sponge filter was out of the water (due to evaporation). Not good 😅

I’m going to do a 100% water change regardless, I’m more concerned on how to know if the tank is cycled and balanced without having to wait for weeks to see if the parameters stay stable. I’m afraid I don’t have the luxury of time with the fish I want to medicate.

I’ve had a bit of trouble with some red honey gouramis I got many months ago, with almost the entire stock from one particular store dying on me over time and the stock from another store being perfectly fine. I also have had a cardinal tetra succumb to this strange affliction over time too. I have 1 gourami left from that store and he’s always looked strange. His body has always looked much thinner and paler than the rest but he’s always been super active and eating and pooping fine. From the pictures you can see how this guy looks like he has no fat in his body, compared to my other gouramis. I have treated him and everyone with no less than 3-4 rounds of prazipro and him with at least 2 rounds of levamisole to no avail. After doing all this, I kinda just gave up and assumed he just had a genetic defect and was like that. Recently, he’s become noticeably more pale and skinny. I’m willing to do another round of levamisole but I don’t have high hopes. I don’t know what other medication to use and I don’t even know if the issue is parasitic. The picture I included was of him 2 months ago and he’s now even skinnier and paler now. Second picture is of his healthy tank mate for comparison. He’s completely see-through too, unlike his healthy mates. I know he’s also being bullied by the other gouramis (by being chased away whenever they see each other) which can contribute. I’ve been struggling a bit with this tank lately and am becoming pretty disheartened by the hobby. I’d appreciate any and all help. Mandatory info: 0 ammonia, 0 nitrite, 20 nitrate 6.6 pH 78-80 F temp 29 gallon heavily planted tank

So I’ve had this 13 gal tote as a QT since I started my community tank. Due to financial hardship, I haven’t been adding new fish for the last few months and have just let my QT just sit there for many months without light on and without topping off. The water level has lowered significantly and I’m assuming all the floating plants in there are dead by now. I have a fish now that’s had some mysterious wasting disease since I got it (am making a separate post about it) who’s taking a turn for the worst now and need my QT ready to go again ASAP. I dont want to do anything that’ll increase the fish’s stress. How can I know that my QT is still good to go? Anything else I should be doing besides a 100% water change?

Thank you for your response, very insightful. I can't tell the sexes since none of them have clear cut different fin shapes like how people use to sex other gouramis. Don't know if that's because they're young. I'm glad to know some chasing is to be expected but I also don't want the fish feel like they don't have enough room in my tank. Do you think keeping the 4 is a good idea or should I return some of them? If so, how many? I'll try to get a good video for you all tomorrow to show you what I mean by the behavior. The biggest bully is still in fish jail so you won't see the main culprit.

Hi everyone, so if you notice I've been posting a lot about my gouramis lately. I can't catch a break with these guys! I bought 4 of these cute little fish for my 29 gal tank about 2-3 months ago because everyone kept saying they were peaceful community fish. Well, they were wrong. One of the males (I think he is at least) grew increasingly more territorial over the entire right side of the tank and kept aggressively chasing and picking at the scales of any gourami that approached that side. It got so bad that one of the other gouramis got so stressed and and lost color, weight, and even will to swim. She eventually gave up and sat on the gravel in a hidden corner of my tank to hide from the bully. I treated her in my QT for a few weeks and hoped that once I put her back into the main tank that it's been enough time for the bully to forget, but he did not. Went straight to chasing. I ended up throwing him in fish jail (my QT) to give the 3 other gouramis a break. All was well for a few days, super peaceful. But then I noticed something strange, one of the previously passive gouramis started chasing the other 2! Then the one that got sick also started chasing! It's still much more peaceful than before but they still don't last long in each other's line of sight before starting to chase. Is this just their natural behavior? Are they supposed to chase each other? I thought honey gouramis were peaceful fish and did not expect this. Now I don't know whether to just return the bully fish into the main tank and just let it be or if they are meant to be alone (just having 1 and returning 3). I got 4 because I read that they like company, but maybe not these guys? I know there's controversy over whether honey gouramis and "red honey's" are the same species, and could explain behavior differences. Honestly this just all causes me second-hand anxiety just watching them chase each other and that's the last thing I want to feel when watching my aquarium lol. Would love your input, especially if someone here also owns red honeys.

Thanks guys! I actually ended up dosing the tank with prazipro just in case there was something parasitic that was causing him to clamp his fins, and lo and behold a few days later he was fine. Just grumpy still. I have to agree with you all - maybe he's young and inexperienced with building nests lol!

Alright so it's been about 2 weeks. She is much more active and her color is great. She is opening her fins again too which is nice to see! So by all regards she seems better except one thing, despite her abdomen seeming big due to the extra food I've been feeding, her actual body looks around the same. I try comparing her to my other gouramis and her head and body is still straighter looking than the rounded heads and bodies from the other fish. Don't know what's up with that. Will it take a while for her to plump up again?

My water is 60% RO and 40% tap so the hardness is brought to medium low gH (don't remember the exact number) so I don't think that's it. Is it possible he's just young and is still learning how to make it?

Thanks for your response! I tried to see if he attempts when the sponge filter was off after a water change and... nothing. I also saw a few videos where honey gouramis do successfully breed with a sponge filter around. Maybe the mucus thing is the issue? Also question on that screenshot you posted: what do they mean by "displaced behavior" and "misdirected energy?" Once I get a fish out of my QT tank this week I'll move my boy into it to see if he stops clamping his fins and if he makes a bubble nest. The fins are starting to concern me now. I noticed since the clamped fins started he hasn't been trying to blow bubbles like before. Lets hope all he needed was his own bachelor pad!

Hi everyone, I've had my "red honey" gouramis for about 2 months and I think one of them is a male. I can tell because he's gotten a bit territorial with the area he likes to chill in and chases everyone else away. He's been almost constantly sucking in air from the surface and blowing bubbles to no avail. Seems like he's trying to make a nest but every time he tries, they pop a second after they are made. I know some people out there say "not enough humidity, add a lid" when this situation happens but I actually do have a lid, albeit it has a small gap at the end only big enough for cables to come out. You can see the condensation on the lid so I don't think it's a humidity problem. I did the styrofoam cup trick I've read online about to see if that helps but he wasn't interested in the cup and when his bubbles did end up floating into it they still popped. I'll be honest, I'm not meaning to breed my gouramis but my male seems pretty stressed about this, which is why I'm posting. But if the breeding did happen, I'll admit it'd be pretty cool. He's trying day in and day out and chasing anyone away when they get too close. I removed the cup today and now all his fins are clamped (related? I don't know). I'm wondering how can I make it so my poor guy can build the nest of his dreams so he can stop stressing about it. Some info you should know, my tank is a 29 gal with a bit of current but nothing crazy (runs 2 filters, an aquaclear HOB with a diffuser over the output and the current is set to a little above the lowest setting, and a standard sponge filter on the opposite side).

Got Expel-P today! One question I have about the medicated food is, how much should I feed the her? The instructions say "as needed" but how can I make sure she has the right amount of medication each time? I typically feed Hikari Fancy Guppy Pellets.

Sounds good! Can you treat both the water and give medicated food at the same time, or just stick to the medicated food?

Thank you so much for your response, this is very helpful, I'll get the meds ASAP! Getting ahead of myself, what would be the next step of action if this doesn't help?

Bump?

Hi everyone, I got 4 “red honey” gouramis (yes I know they’re probably a hybrid of thick lips and honeys) and recently I’ve noticed that one of them has a body that is less “full” looking (for lack of a better word) than the others. The belly looks full when she eats, it’s the rest of her body that’s weird. The fish is eating, swimming, and pooping fine but it does look like she's clamping her fins on occasion, paler than before, and thin in comparison to the others. Comparing her now with pictures when I first got her, I can see a noticeable difference. This fish likes to hide a bit more than the others but I attributed that and the occasional fin clamping to being chased by one of the other gouramis. I’m worried it’s some latent bacterial infection slowly killing my fish and want to take steps ASAP. I bought another gourami with them that died of a mysterious bacterial illness a bit over a month ago and I worry it might be the same thing. Does she look normal to you? Should I preventively treat her with erythromycin? First two pics are her and the last one is an example of how the another one looks like for comparison. Obligatory info: Heavily planted 29 gal, 0 ammonia, 0 nitrite, 20 nitrate

That makes sense. I'll get a cup of tap water and leave it out for a day and measure it. 78 F

How would this be any different than say, testing my aquarium parameters mid week in between water changes? My parameters are consistent across the week.

Thanks for the speedy reply. I actually misspoke, I meant the Kordon Rid-Ich. It has worked for me very well in the past. I already drip acclimate with a tube attached to a valve. I've been doing it for the last few batches but the same thing happens. Thing is, the fish don't die immediately so I know it's not the acclimation. They die over a period of a month. The cardinals would die on me 1 per day. The gouramis behaved perfectly normally for about a month until one day they didn't. PH out of my tap from my memory was a gnarly 8.2 or so. I mix in 60% RO water and 40% tap and get a consistent pH of 6.8. The gH out of my tap was crazy high, about 11 or so. In my tank it's consistently 5-6. I gotta say I don't know what the parameters are after aerating a cup of water for a day, never heard of this method honestly - but I do know that my parameters have been stable since my tank finished cycling about half a year ago.

I appreciate your in-depth reply. To see if I understand you correctly, you used the API stuff as part of the trio or separately? Also to your other question, it's been incredibly frustrating dealing with this! My parameters on my tank (29 gal) have been a stable 0 ammonia, 0 nitrite, and 20 nitrate for as long as I can remember, it's never moved. I used to acclimate them by floating them in the bag and then adding a bit of aquarium water using a cup or a turkey baster every 5 minutes up to 30 minutes total. Once all the casualties started happening, my LFS recommended drip acclimating, which I started doing and to no different results. One of my LFS's blames me for having a pH that they claim is too high for some of the fish (cardinal tetras have been the fish I've dealt with the most casualties, across many different stores in my area). My pH was 7.0-7.2 at the time and theirs was around 6.5. I started adding more RO water to drop it over time to 6.8 and still the same result. I went to a different LFS that has 7.0 water and same thing, all the cardinals I bought ended up dead. I recently bought mislabeled red honey gouramis that are actually thick-lips at yet another store who doesn't do RO water at all (so their water is most likely around 8 if not higher) and I lost 2 of the 4 over a month. But the weird part is the fish that end up surviving and the ones I currently have are perfectly fine, perfectly healthy, and the diseases that seem to kill the other fish don't get to them. I don't know if it's bad luck, something with my tank, or just the stores in my area carry fish with bad genetics. With the cardinals, the deaths would start with 1 a day over a period of about a month and whoever survives (usually 0 or 1) is perfectly fine and joins my main tank with no issues. I have tried buying about 4-5 batches of cardinals from different sources all with the same result. With the gouramis recently, I got 4 of them and I left them in my QT for only a week after deworming them since the LFS said they've been in the store for a month. 2 of the fish colored up nicely over time, 2 didn't but otherwise acted fine. I just thought maybe they were younger and didn't think much of it since their behavior was normal. Randomly after a month of adding them to my main tank, one of them started showing swim bladder issues yet continued to eat and then from one day to the next started corkscrewing and died within hours. I moved the other pale one (who, in retrospect looked a bit deformed) to a QT and very quickly pineconed and died within days. It's been quite a disheartening last few months trying to stock my tank. Thanks Cory, so I guess I can't replace paracleanse with prazi. But what about the rest?

Hi everyone! First post here and excited to be part of this community. After many months of bad luck with buying fish at local shops and month-long quarantines (and I won’t even mention how much money I’ve put down the drain…), I’m done with the waiting game, I’m ready to do the quarantine trio or some variation of it. I avoided it because I didn’t want to overly stress out the fish but I’m so sick of having a 50% or so mortality rate even with my many months established heavily planted aquarium where the regular inhabitants have no issues, it’s only the new guys I buy. I don’t want to spend even more unnecessary money though, so here’s where the question comes in. Can prazipro work as a direct substitute for paracleanse in the trio? Same thing for API erythromycin for Maracyn and Fritz rid-ich for ich-x. They all have the same active ingredients, just different brands. I’m looking forward to hearing your thoughts.