Baby gourami can’t swallow :(

[Hobbit]

I have three baby honey gourami that are about 2 months old and one has recently started spitting out all the food he gets in his mouth. I feed them exclusively live baby brine shrimp right now. At first I thought he was being picky but I’ve watched him for a long time, and I don’t think he’s able to get any food down at all. He’ll eagerly hunt down 4-7 brine shrimp and then they’ll all come out of his mouth at once. Sometimes he tries to eat the same ones, sometimes he tries new ones. Since this started I haven’t seen him poop at all though I easily could be missing the event.

They all have fairly red gills. One (a different one) has started flashing against the plants. All three have little brown spots on their bodies in various places, though the spots are so small it’s hard for me to tell if it’s just dirt or something else.

Tank setup and parameters:

• 10 gallon with sponge filter
• floating plants and water sprite
• A handful of cherry shrimp and snails
• pH: 7.4
• Nitrates: 0.25
• Nitrite: 0
• Ammonia: 0
• KH: 50ppm (3)
• GH: 100ppm (6)
• Water Temperature: 80

Any ideas would be really appreciated! It breaks my heart to see him try so hard to eat.

Edit: here’s a picture of one of them (not sure which). The brown spots aren’t visible in this picture unfortunately—I’ll see if I can get a better one.

Edited October 26, 2020 by Hobbit

[jordon]

Hey Hobbit im no fish expert but ive had bettas and barbs do the same thing, Most of the time its because there picky eaters so try feeding frozen bloodworms or a quaility pellet/granule. Turned out to be the barbs were fed strickly bloodworms so my cheap flakes didnt intrested them, once i fed bloodworm and good quality micro granules they wouldnt stop eating, Sadly my betta did pass but i think he had other issues. 

[Hobbit]

Thanks jordon. That may have been all it was—this morning he seems to be eating fine. Maybe he finally got hungry enough to swallow! I’m a bit of a nervous mom when it comes to my babies.