laritheloud

I also have medicated feed. One is kanamycin and the other is oxytetracycline

Is it more likely to be bacterial than anything else? All of my tanks have been through parasite treatment (not levamisole because I have seen no evidence of camallanus).I just saw her pass some poop and it looked normal. She’s back in the tank now

She’s in the bath and she’ll go into quarantine for a rest after

Thank you, I'll get it ready

And how long should I give her the Epsom Salt bath?

I have seen her pass a little poop. I will withhold food. Can I wait to do the epsom salt bath tomorrow or is it best to do it as soon as possible? I don't want to stress her too much. I have a lee's specimen container I usually use for baths, should I use the five gallon bucket instead and fill it with two full gallons?

Video of the sick fish https://streamable.com/vuc67z this week I added my male honey gourami to the main tank. Today was fasting day when she started exhibiting this behavior. Edit: I absolutely love this fish, so any tips with where to start would be wonderful. I turned off the lights in her quarantine tank and I did run to the grocery store to pick up Epsom Salt, but I'm trying to let her rest for now. I don't have time to change water in the main tank tonight but I can do it tomorrow.

Hi everyone! Today my thicklipped gourami appears to be having trouble swimming. I'm not sure if this means a swim bladder problem or something else. She can swim around the tank but at rest she floats to the top. It looks like it's taking her a lot of effort to swim down. Where should I begin with treatment? I do have a quarantine tank. @Colu? Tank parameters for main tank are: Ammonia 0 Nitrite 0 Nitrate 30 to 40 ppm Ph 8.0 KH and GH both between 10 and 12 I do not have epsom salt, but I do have aquarium salt. Is epsom salt available at a drug store? I have a cabinet full of other meds. No other fish are displaying issues, including my other gouramis.

This helps IMMENSELY. My husband was trying to convince me that there was no reason for me to worry about it because it’ll be able to handle so much weight, but it’s good to have other reassurance. Love the tank!

Your female gourami might also be carrying some eggs in that round belly. 🙂 Both look healthy to me!

I think you have the highest chance of a healthy happy fish with something like a Betta. 5 gallons is pretty small! In my 10 I have a few male endlers, a giant ramshorn snail, and blue dream shrimp. (along with many small 'pest' ramshorn and bladder snails).

Thanks colu! I'll get some and play around, it's cheap enough

Thanks everyone! As I said, heard lots of conflicting things about no substrate beneath rocks so fish won’t dig underneath and shift the hard scape/get hurt, padding rocks, etc. The stone I bought does not have sharp edges so maybe it will be good!

I got some nice, weathered, larger river rocks for my 55 gallon hardscape (35 pounds of rock). I'm seeing mixed results in a search online on whether I should pad the rocks in the aquarium with egg crate or something else before placing on the bottom and adding the substrate. What do you do for your aquariums? Is there a recommended way of doing this? I find it interesting because I don't think folks with SW aquariums pad their live rocks, so I'm not sure if there's a standard.

There are pythons that siphon to a bucket, but the ones that hook up to a sink are a really great tool for folks with very large tanks or disabilities that can't easily haul buckets of water around. It cuts down on time significantly (and after starting the suction by turning on the sink water you can turn it off again). I catch solids in a strainer and don't let them go down the sink. Your mileage may vary, I think it's important to just use the tools that work for you.

For future reference, after a ton of research I've realized that male honey gouramis have lemon yellow 'mohawks' on their dorsal fins, while female fins are rimmed with orange. We have one male and two females in my tank, and he's started in on building a nest. 🙂 EDIT: Congrats on the fry! They must be so adorable!

https://streamable.com/0qtnuz Update from today, full stocking now 1 thicklipped gourami (female) 3 honey gouramis 6 Diamond Tetras + 3 fry that made it to juvenile-hood and have become 9 2 mystery snails 6 amano shrimp 4 nerite snails The male honey just cleared quarantine and seems to be establishing his place in the pecking order. Keeping an eye on them all.

Good luck! If she's eating, that's a good sign. I don't know if you've owned honeys before but this freaked me out initially -- they do tend to rest/sleep at night, usually in the floating plants or low to the substrate. If they bottom-sit throughout the day that's the sign of a bigger problem.

Oh they were from the co-op? That is really strange. It could be a persistent parasite, but whatever you do choose to medicate, I would probably just go for the whole tank (since they've shared a tank anyway). I'm just reporting on my experience with honeys that looked similar to this, and I live on the opposite coast of the co-op. I do agree that something is going on. She looks a bit pale and skinny.

I didn't see the cysts, but in two honeys I picked up two months ago, they had reddened gills and were acting sick. One of them passed away on day 2. The second I treated with two rounds of general cure (or paracleanse, same med) and she was nursed to full health. I'm going to say that it's likely some kind of parasite, especially if the fish is acting a little listless and isn't interested in food. Also I'm 95% sure your 'male' fish is also a female. Female gold honey gouramis have orange rims on the fins. Males have a lemon yellow 'mohawk' and no orange on the top. EDIT to add: Personally, I would treat both honeys for parasites to start (something with metronidazole like general cure, metroplex, or paracleanse). If one of them is showing symptoms and they both came from the same tank at the shop, it's best to treat them both.

Thank you. I'll attempt not to panic too much more. I have snails and amano shrimp in the tank, and the ecosystem is doing quite nicely if I say so myself. I'll change the water on my usual day again if I have to.

So I tried the Ziss brine shrimp hatchery and didn't have the co-op eggs yet. My hatch rate was poor despite heat and an air source. I tried to get what I could of the swimmers, but ended up adding a whole bunch of unhatched eggs to my aquarium water. OF course, I panicked and immediately did a 50% water change, siphoning out what I could. Should I be prepared to do another water change tomorrow? Did I end up with a huge problem?

I love them. Watching them pucker their cute little fishy lips and slurp up those brine shrimp is just too adorable. It's my favorite thing to feed my gouramis.

I would love to try killifish someday, but my vote has to go to sparkling or honey gouramis. I've become a little gourami obsessed since getting mine. They're very sweet fish to watch! Also, these aren't necessarily the 'prettiest' fish in the tank, but if you want to try an underrated gourami I would get a thicklipped gourami. We got one by mistake when I requested a male/female honey pair, and the staff at the shop gave me a female honey with a female thicklipped they misidentified as a male honey. They do exist in the wild color variation which is extremely pretty, but it's more common to find them in the 'sunset' variety (they darken as they grow). I find the personality of mine to be very, very charming, and quite a bit more outgoing than my mild and shy honeys. She follows me around the sides of the tank to watch me if she ever spots me approaching. She's always vying for my attention and will eat out of my hand. She does some minor chasing of tetras away from her morsel of food but never anything more than that in terms of aggression. Highly recommend for their endearing personalities!

Southern New Jersey born and raised, with a trip to Pittsburgh for university and DC for my early career. No, not the part of New Jersey anywhere near NYC -- I live in farm country, in a very old town of about 1500 people, surrounded by fruit orchards, horses, and cows. We are closer to Wilmington, Delaware than any other city, with Philadelphia the next-closest. I'll never forget when my then-boyfriend, now-husband Wisconsinite visited my part of NJ for the first time and exclaimed, "Wow! There are trees here!" We have quite a few LFSs around here along with Petco and Petsmart, but my favorite store is a well-stocked aquarium center about half an hour away. I have two tanks so far, a 29 gallon (corydoras elegans, diamond tetras, honey gouramis, thicklipped gourami, mystery snails, amano shrimp, and nerite snails) and a 10 gallon (quarantine, technically), and I'm working on starting up a 55 gallon with larger gouramis and rasboras, possibly livebearers.