# Red patches on Dwarf Gourami, is he doomed...? :(



## Bunny (Oct 13, 2013)

Hi everyone, I have had really bad luck with my dwarf gouramis, lost 2/3 over the last 6 months due to injuries getting infected and stubbornly refusing to heal.

Now there is only one gourami in my community tank (and other peaceful community fish) and I was hoping with no one to pick on him he would live out a long and healthy life. But now he is developing mysterious injuries. 

About 3 days ago I noticed some slight discoloration on his body and added a half dose of melafix, 2 days ago the discolouration was looking more red under his blue scales and I dosed with a full dose of melafix, yesterday the red patches were much worse looking and starting to look a little puffy and I dosed again with a full dose of melafix although I'm starting to think its not really helping....

Does anyone have any advice? I'd like to avoid quarantining if possible - no space for a tank except the floor and every other fish I have quarantined to treat has ended up either dieing or needing to be put down so I dont have very good experiences with that.....


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## Livyding (Feb 6, 2013)

That website with the pic you just posted is actually a fantastic resource... When you are having a fish emergency you can actually email this team of experts who volunteer their time running the site and they get back to you really quickly and then post the correspondence so people can search for themselves when they are having problems.

For example, I just google searched "wetwebmedia Dwarf gourami" and one of the first things that popped up was this : FAQs on Colisa lalia, C. chuna... "Dwarf" Gouramis of Many Names, Honey, Flames, Neon Blue, Sunset Fire... Disease/Health

A quick read will tell you that your guy probably has Dwarf gourami disease. Get yourself some antibiotics (Melafix is garbage, don't bother with it) but unfortunately he still probably won't make it... I think there are a lot of more hardy types of also very pretty gouramis you can get though.

Good luck


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## Bunny (Oct 13, 2013)

is there any way that I can spot treat the wounds with something? I read about dabbing hydrogen peroxide on them when the fish is out of water for a min. anything like that?

He is looking worse now, although for a day there I thought they might be starting to heal up...










I have some of that blue liquid bandaid stuff I might try... it will turn my tank water blue but as long as it doesn't harm my other fish blue isn't a problem...


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## Rockman (May 19, 2013)

Those aren't injuries... that's a bacterial disease. You could try a broad spectrum antibiotic (not the triple sulfa stuff that didn't work the last time... something else. API furan 2 or Tetra fungus guard are possibilities. Maybe tetracycline or similar... but supposedly just about everything is resistant to that these days).

Adding some aquarium salt to the water might help (fishie is likely losing salt from the sores... adding salt to the water makes it easier on him). About 1.5-3 g/l would be good (roughly 1.5 teaspoons per gallon).

I do tend to recommend QT'ing if at all possible. Antibiotics aren't really something you want to add to the main tank; it's cheaper to dose a smaller volume; and it's easier to maintain good water quality. Also... if fishies does have something nasty he's less likely to spread it to the other fish (through the water, from eating infected feces, corpses, etc).


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## Bunny (Oct 13, 2013)

I've dose the tank with about .75 tsp/gal of salt for now and will add a little more tomorrow morning if everyone still seems fine and the gourami is still alive. Unfortunately I am busy with work/school 9am-9pm both tomorrow and the next day and have no way to get any sort of antibiotics other than the triple sulfa I have leftover... and as you mentioned, that totally did not work last time. 

If he is still alive on friday I'll get something else for him... but I'm not overly hopeful  I wish I thought of getting other antibiotics earlier today when stores were open...

Thank you guys for your help, I'll keep this thread updated if I can


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