laritheloud

That's what I'm thinking, too. I wish there were better answers for this. I googled lockjaw in guppies and found a lot of discussion about it happening to their fish, but most of the time, it either resolved itself on its own or it didn't and the fish died quickly. Thanks for your help. I'll make sure he goes peacefully.

So this is incredibly hard to see but he looks worse today, like there’s a growth exploding out of his mouth (not cottony). He’s definitely not eating. I’m not sure if this is something that’ll get fixed!

@Colu I water changed until all the parameters were straight zero, moved him to quarantine, and dosed the tank with Kanaplex. I can keep a close eye on him and he can rest now. I doubt he'll make a dent in the parameters with him being so darn small, but I'll watch them closely anyway.

Darn it. I could try to change the nitrite-spiked water in my cycling hospital tank. Would I have to treat all of the fish?

Update: He's not eating. Would treating the water kill my snails and shrimp, @Colu?

@Colu Today is fasting day so I'm actually not sure if he's eating. I can start a course tomorrow for the entire tank... or would you recommend waiting-and-seeing/euthanizing? There's 13 endlers in the tank, all male, and the others are behaving normally. EDIT: His gills appear fine and the weirdest thing is that his mouth looks 'stuck' open? It's not gasping. It's literally just sitting open.

What do you recommend? I have medicated feed with Kanaplex and medicated feed with Oxytetracycline. I need something shrimp-safe. My new hospital tank is mid-cycle.

So this one endler isn’t looking too good. He’s sluggish and hanging around the top with his mouth wide open (????). No signs of fungus or bacteria, parameters of the tank are ph 8.0, amm 0, nitrite 0, nitrate maybe 5. It’s super stable and full of shrimp. Temp is set to 78. The endlers have been through general cure and levamisole (complete several rounds) and no changes have been made to the tank in months. I have no idea what this could possibly be. I also don’t know how old the fish was when we got him so there’s that!

That looks like a freshwater limpet to me. Likely it came in on a plant.

I've heard mixed things about angelfish with gouramis; sometimes it's okay, sometimes they get in each other's way. If you want to be extra safe, I'd choose a mild-mannered mid-to-bottom-dwelling fish instead of an angelfish. Keyhole cichlids, a pair of apistogramma, or rams (I'd choose Bolivian over German because they're a bit more hardy) should be okay.

Get the frog. 😁 And I completely hear you. I have hard, alkaline water, too. I'd love to keep something like chocolate or samurai gouramis, but they're not meant to be with what I've got. Sparkling gouramis are hardier and would do fine in neutral to harder water, I'm not convinced licorice gouramis would be okay.

Ah, I glazed completely over the nerite. Yeah, no puffers with the nerite! I'd try the licorice or sparkling gourami, though. 🙂 I think you can even get away with a pair of licorice gouramis in that tank. They look very much like teeny tiny bettas. They do like softer, more acidic water, but if you can give them good care they should live a good 5 years.

I'd consider a freshwater bumblebee goby, a sparkling gourami, a licorice gourami, or a pea puffer for a tank that size.

I'm excited to see this! I'm not picky, I'd just love the experience. 🙂

At least a year. I've had my gold female for about 6 months, and she was incredibly small when we first got her. You can see her here in quarantine when we first got her with her gourami 'sisters' and the mis-identified thicklip female we got. 🙂

There probably were. I just tried to research when the super line-bred forms started popping up but couldn't find any easily-accessible information online. I've heard of some folks picking up some wild-caught DGs, but they're so rarely seen that I'm not sure I'll ever get them locally. I can always keep my fingers crossed and ask my LFS when I go to pick up my harem of thicklips!

I think showing the stripe vs. not showing the stripe is a bit of a mystery. I agree that it's most likely related to mood. Some suggest a stronger stripe in wild-types indicates breeding dress, but I don't actually see any hard evidence either way. Just one of their quirks. Because the female fish 'turn' the stripe on and off throughout the day, I don't think it's related to stress, either. I do think mature gold honey gourami females tend to lose the stripe or at least rarely exhibit it. I'm waiting for my young gold female to mature to that degree! They look like so, and I'm 99% sure @Hobbit's Mom Fish looks like this:

For those who love dwarf gouramis but fear the health issues they often carry.... has anyone ever seen wild-caught dwarf gouramis for sale before? I would love to raise a group of them if I can ever find them. I've read they are mild-mannered and have a temperament much more like honey gouramis than captive/selectively-bred dwarfs. These are reputedly excellent community fish, and hardier than their selectively-bred counterparts.

I've had a conversation about this with my husband, but fishkeeping has a lot of barriers-to-entry (both with knowledge and investment) in order to be successful. There's an awful lot of gatekeeping within the hobby culture, and not a lot of simple and direct ways to get good, correct, and helpful information about where to begin. And on top of that, the sheer volume of things a newcomer needs to keep in mind can be awfully overwhelming and confusing to tackle. LFSs and big box stores need to do a better job guiding people towards making good decisions for their tanks and fish. We as a community need to do a better job starting people out from the ground up and helping them learn by doing. I think this forum is especially good with being kind to newcomers in a way that I don't see in a lot of other corners of the internet.

Someday, I'm going to get my beautiful, LORGE bubba moonlight gouramis. They have snoots! They have orange accents! They're a gorgeous shimmery silvery-green! They have the most enormous feelers! They're mostly peaceful! How can you resist?!

Gosh, I'm far from an expert! I just got deep in the weeds about gouramis! 😅 In any case, you have a pair for sure! The female looks quite a bit younger than the male. Her color looks a bit weak, too. Did you add the pair to the tank recently? How is she eating and how is her behavior? She might just need some time to settle and plump up to show her colors better (mine took a few weeks to really settle and show her bright orange fins), but if you suspect anything is off, I'd try a round of general cure or another mild anti-parasite. As she settles and gets happier/grows, you'll notice her fins will gain a more intense, brighter orange. My young goldie will also 'turn off' her stripe at night when she is resting, but I haven't seen her turn it 'off' turning the day yet. EDIT: I want to add that I'm fairly certain both of your fish are still quite young. You'll notice as the male grows older the orange in his caudal fin will intensify. Gouramis grow very slowly, so this might take longer than you think!

Male gold honeys can have the stripe if they're very young, but they will lose it. Females will be plumper if they're full-grown. My wild-type female is only slightly larger than my gold male. My gold female is smallest of the three.

Old age, maybe? I don't think bettas tend to live very long.

Dawn dish soap and hot water. I use all the same kitchen prep dishes for repashy that I use for people, and we hand wash those. Dishwasher is for plates and flatware that we use for meals, hand-washing for most other things.

Repashy is a hit with all of my fish, but am I the only one who finds it enormously difficult to figure out how much to feed? I put what feels like the smallest pinch of food into my aquarium and my thicklip ends up hoarding it all. She'll let the corycats eat if they can get to it while she's nomming... Do I just have to make peace with the fact that my gourami really wants to balloon up?