Pearl Gourami with strange behavior

Hi. Maybe should've posted under "Diseases" section, but I'm not sure whether it is a disease or not.

A while a go I bought a juvenile Dwarf Gourami.
Beautiful fish with no hassles, except that the Pearl tackled it every so often. Obviously a territorial issue.
After about 2 weeks the Dwarf was putting on some meat and have grown quite fast and now the roles were reversed - he tackles the Pearl which then goes and hides behind some plants.

After another week or so I noticed that the Dwarf was totally dominating the Pearl. It got no chance to move "freely" without the Dwarf going after him. Now the Pearl has resorted to just "reclining" on the gravel behind some plants or under the filter box.

I decided that this is not fair, the Pearl was there 1st and I took the Dwarf back to a LFS eventually.

I thought that the Pearl would now recover quickly and return to its old self of roaming and gliding around gracefully, but no, something's wrong.
This Pearl now only comes up to surface now and then, maybe at feeding time, sometimes to take a gulp of air. Rest of the time it sort of falls down, even tail first, right down to the gravel, where it then props itself upright by balancing on its fins.

This week however it's gotten worse. Whenever the fish comes up it seems to labour to the top of the tank, take very large gulps of air and floats straight down to the bottom. Either onto the gravel or just falls down in among the leaves of the plants. Some of the "falling" down motions are almost head-over-tail bacwards, or sideways, but mostly tail-end first.
And when it's "resting" on the gravel or in the plant leaves it "burps" large bubbles from the air it swallowed a the surface"

It seems in OK condition - lost some weight from its sparring matches with the Dwarf, but otherwise colouring seems ok, fin condition seems ok, not bloated, not spotty, not pale, etc.

What could be wrong with this fish? Has it developed some sort of swim bladder issue?
Why did it start when the Dwarf started bullying it or is that just coincidence?
I really thought this fish just needed a shrink to get back its confidence, but it appears something else is wrong.

Has anyone ever seen this sort of behavior and know what is ailing this poor Pearl Gourami?

Needlaess to say, except for the outbreak of whitespot in the last week or 2, no other fish in the tank has shown this behavior. Oh, and this behavior started long before the current white spot issue. In fact, only the 6x Cardinals in the tank show any signs of ich spots. the rest of the fish are all clear.
Thus, I don't think this Pearl is affected by ich, it's got to be something else.

Ideas?

 

I would definitely say it's a swim bladder issue, but that's kinda like when you have a sore throat and the doctor says it's "pharyngitis", all that really means is you've got a sore throat

What I'm saying is that swim bladder issues can be caused by all kinds of things, it could be a disease, it could be physical trauma from the bullying, he could lie down and die or live a long life with swim bladder issues or get better on his own. I hope that someone with more experience will come and give you some info that's actually useful; all I can say is that when my Discus have had swim bladder issues I have treated them with Epsom salts plus lots and lots of water changes to make sure the water quality is as perfect as it can be.

 

Thx for the input PsyXe.
This is what I don't get. Since I set up my tank in Dec 2013 I ran it in for 3wks with sterilized fine gravel, sterilized driftwood pieces, then plants. All with bio-balls + carbon sponge and normal sponges in filter.
Added pro-bio water treatment. Plants thriving. pH at 6.8 Absolutely zero PPM NO3 in tank.
THEN only I intro'd some fish. And then some plants again later. And then some fish later...

It tells me 1 thing - you can start up with the purest cleanest setup in the world, the ideal Utopia for fish, but somewhere along the line some newly introduced fishy or some plants are gonna introduce some agents that mess the whole thing up. Like some unwanted parasites, fungi, bacteria, etc.

This is why I now have an outbreak of ich, a danio with an unknown "hole in its side" disease, and now a gourami with unknown issue affecting its swim bladder.
Go figure. It's quite depressing.
Like, whatever good you try, you just can't win. As I said to my wife the other nite, when I was a lad and I had a community tank, the ONLY issues I ever had was white spot. Never ever any other issues. At one time I ran consecutively for almost 3 years without a single incident of anything - oh, except the Weather Loach occasionally getting out the tank, rolling on the carpet until it was completely dry and covered in cat fur, just to be thrown back in the tank the next morning and by noon he was just fine again. He was TOUGH!

Why can we not start a perfect setup like I did and trust the LFS's to provide me with perfectly clean fish and plants and everything's fine ever after? That's the way I used to have it....

But you know what? I'm not going to give up! I'm gonna nurse this fish back to health even if it means breastfeeding him myself!
OK, maybe the last bit is a bit weird and impossible. Please ignore.
But, let's hope there's some hope for it and it can be cured. Maybe this Bio-Elite stuff I'm using for the white spot at moment will act as a tonic to sort him out...???

 

LOL! Best of luck - love the image of you breastfeeding the Gourami and also your weather loach rolling around in the cat fur.

I had to Google Maps Despatch... do you live in Despatch, Pretoria or Despatch, Eastern Cape? If it's EC I can't help you, but if PTA have you tried Pet Stop? I've hardly ever had trouble with diseases from fish I've bought from there.

 

Hi PsyXe. I'm in Despatch, EC.

Seems the pearl is deteriorating further. It doesn't want to eat anymore.
Should I euthanize? What do the rest of you think?

Lotsa things to keep in mind in our area:
- Fishies from LFS not always so healthy,
- Very hard high pH water in Despatch (pH = 8 to 8.5). You can pH-down it to 6.5 as much as you want, it keeps rebounding with in 24hrs. I set up my tank with only bottled water!
- Herein lies the problem with a LFS close to where I live: they don't treat their water or try to adjust pH. I bought some fish from them, tested the water in the packet and it was at 8!
That's really not a nice practice imo. If you're going to sell fish from your pet shop I'd think you'd keep your fish in the best circumstances to give them the best opportunity to survive the stresses of being caught, sold and transported to their new homes.
Anyways, I guess the LFS just doesn't care or it would be too costly for them to try and correct the nasty municipal water we get here.

cheers

 

:cry: So sorry to hear that @oRion! Anyone else have any ideas?

 

Aag no! The Pearl didn't make it.
Found it dead this morning.
I'm so sad. I guess I should've applied euthanasia when I noticed it's no longer eating (about 3 days ago).
I just didn't have the heart and it looked ok, except for not being active.
Crap, I'm sooo sorry for it. Hope the poor fishie forgives me.....

 

I'm so sorry @oRion, I don't think you should feel guilty about it. It's not like you kept it hanging around in terrible condition and suffering.

 

Don't feel to bad. It's not easy loosing a fish. Trust me I talk from experience. Sorry for the loss.