# Mysterious Gourami Death



## Mnemia (Nov 23, 2004)

Hi,
I just had the largest male honey gourami in my 20 gallon die somewhat mysteriously (at least, I can't find an obvious cause). I woke up this morning, and he was dead (although obviously quite recently since there was no decay of the body yet). There is no visible sign of disease on the body (no visible parasites, fungus, fin or gill damage, etc).

The only other fish in there are an SAE and 2 other smaller honey gouramis. All the other fish look fine and unstressed. The one that died did look a little stressed out last night (trying to hide behind some plants and hanging out at the surface) although I didn't believe it to be anything unusual at the time since he was in the same spot he has always had his territory. He also didn't eat very well when I fed them last night, although he did pick at some food just a little bit. Last night was the first I'd seen much of problem with this fish.

Ammonia, nitrite are 0, nitrates are ~7.5, and plants are growing well so I would assume they would consume any ammonia quickly anyway. pH is 6.5 (measured in the morning), with KH of 3. My first thought was that CO2 levels might be getting a little high at night and causing a pH drop due to low KH (I'm using DIY with a internal power reactor). However, the fish looked slightly stressed last night even before the lights went off, so I'm thinking it could be something else like internal parasites or even a tumor.

My main question is whether I should be worried about/treating the other fish. I can't see anything remotely wrong with any of them, so I'm just doing a "wait and see" for the moment. Any ideas as to what could have caused this? I've had the fish about 6 months.


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## Raul-7 (Feb 4, 2004)

It can't be high C02 levels since Gouramis have the ability to breathe atmospheric oxygen. Try raising your kH to 5 to keep your pH from swinging. But it could be an internal parasite which is hard to detect since it shows no visible signs on the outside. You may want to dose Seachem ParaGuard which kills all types of parasites, and it helps reduce stress and shock.


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## JanS (Apr 14, 2004)

Sorry about your loss.

You are correct in not wanting to medicate if you don't know what the problem is. I've been seeing way to many people jumping on the med bandwagon, and it just turns out to be harder on all of the fish.

Another thought is that one was just getting picked on by the other ones, since some of the labyrinth fish like Gourami's can be pretty territorial if there are a few in the tank.


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## Mnemia (Nov 23, 2004)

JanS said:


> Sorry about your loss.
> 
> You are correct in not wanting to medicate if you don't know what the problem is. I've been seeing way to many people jumping on the med bandwagon, and it just turns out to be harder on all of the fish.
> 
> Another thought is that one was just getting picked on by the other ones, since some of the labyrinth fish like Gourami's can be pretty territorial if there are a few in the tank.


He was definitely the dominant fish in the tank. If anything, the other fish went out of their way to avoid him because he was quite a bit bigger than the other gouramis, and a lot meaner/more territorial than my SAE (who didn't spar with him at all). He had a corner of the tank which was his territory, and pretty much stayed in that area and harrassed fish who intruded on it. And in any case he didn't have any injuries from fighting on his body as far as I could see.

I ended up doing a 40% water change and cleaning out the tank quite a bit. I've been watching the other fish closely all day and they seem completely okay and are eating fine and everything. I even took a water sample to my LFS to have them double check my test kits. They ran a bunch of tests that I don't have kits for including TDS, iron, chlorine, etc and concluded my water quality was perfect. Although I suppose that some parasite could get in there through tap water, I haven't added any new fish or plant to that tank since November so I would think that everything ought to be clean.


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## glenhead (Jan 29, 2005)

Inexplicable fish deaths seem to be "one of those things". Unless you got the fish from a breeder, or bred it yourself, there's no way to tell how old it was, so it's possible it just died of old age. Given that all the other critters are still doing well, my bet is that it was just one of those things. It sounds like you're doing all the right things to make sure the others stay OK.

I keep telling my wife that the danged things die just to spite me, but she tells me I'm just being paranoid. Something about the entire universe *not* actually revolving around me, or other such lunacy. (Maybe she's out to get me, too... ;-) )


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## JanS (Apr 14, 2004)

Actually, they can carry parasites for quite some time with no visible signs.
Did his belly start looking sunken before he died?

Like Raul said, it sure can't hurt to deworm them (that's really not the same as medicating other ways), just to be on the safe side.
There's a recipe for deworming by soaking your food, if you'd rather go that route. If you're interested, I can post the link.


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