# Gourami not moving anymore and breathing fast.



## Guko (Apr 8, 2010)

Hi

I posted this in the wrong spot cuz I didn’t know there was a fish diseases part in the fourm. I’m kinda new. Anyway I have a 20 gallon fresh water tank with fake plants and gravel. I cycled my tank with the fish in cycle and it just finished about 1 ½ weeks ago. In it I had 2 sword tails and 2 royal blue gourami’s. My female swordtail died during the cycling cuz I’ll admit I had no idea what I was doing and was listening to the people at Pet Smart. Anyway So I got some new fish since the cycle is done. I got 2 new female swordtails. One died about 72 hours later from fin rot and I didn’t know what it was till it was to late. You guys have helped me out and I watch for it now on my other fish. The other female has attached herself to the male quite nicely. The other fish we got are 2 adult guppy males and a baby that came by accident.I feed them fish flakes once a day. I watch ammonia levels and nitrite levels every 1-2 days. They have stayed at zero this entire time but to be safe since I don’t have a nitrate level so I change my water every day. Every once in a while I move my rocks and decorations in the tank to clean under it cuz the old fish flakes stay close to it and the one day the water got really cloudy and then it settled. I changed the water at 50% the following day cuz of that. My temperature has stayed at a consistent 78 degrees and slightly moves up or down. We have a heater and it works great. 

Anyway my issue is my gourami now. Its really behaving differently while the rest of my fish are fine and swimming, meanwhile he started hiding and sitting on the gravel under the sunken ship. He stayed there for 30 minutes. His colour is the same however it looks like he’s staring blankly into space and is breathing really fast. He moves every once in a while and then goes back down to the hiding spot. That was yesterday, today he has been sitting up top near the surface of the tank. He hasn’t eaten since 2 days ago and doesn’t touch it. I have oxygen running from an air pump set up for a 40 gal tank. I haven’t seen him have any excrement but I haven’t been watching them constantly. His stomach looks normal. Apparently my wife said that the other gourami is now up top with the first sick one too but everything else is still acting normally… Please someone help. I’m sorry that this is so long but I need to know what to do and what to use. I’m gonna get a hospital tank for the gourami today or tomorrow and go from there. Thanks for the help in advance and sorry this is such a long post.


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## Guko (Apr 8, 2010)

forgot to mention my pH is about 7.5-7.8 (depends how you read it) its the standard for the pH in my city for the tap water. Every aquarium store I've been to said its fine for fresh water fish


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