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Okay, I was at the local pet store today...browsing while I wait (and wait and wait ) for my tank to cycle, and I was admiring the Neon Blue Dwarf Gourami (or at least that is what it was labeled as, but it has red stripes). As I was looking, there was one of the gourami's floating on it's side. He was still flapping his fin though. So I told the worker (who was already grabing out the other dead fish in other tanks) that this one was barely hangin on, so she may want to help it. As she went to grab it, it turned itself right and swam to the bottom of the tank...seemingly fine. But as we were watching, he swam back to the top, and turned himself on his side, and kept swimmin.

Was he really okay? or should something have been done? (I couldn't take him home, my tank wasn't ready). It's one of the fish I want to stock, so if I know it's behavior before I get one, that will be good.

Thanks

i just euthanized one of my angel fish for the same condition. it had no apparent maladies, but it would act as you described. the only time it would perk up is when i put feeder white cloud fry in the tank, and it would always act normal at feeding times (albiet briefly). after 2 months with no improvement/worsening, i ended it's obvious suffering.

i suspect my angel suffered from swim bladder disease due to the duration of the symptoms with no outward sign of disease. however, a new fish in a lfs could be suffering from a myriad of problems. water shock, parasites, shipping issues. that 1 fish could be the last survivor in its original shipping container- or it could be the 1 fish affected by something minor. hopefully, your lfs isolates (instead of euthanizing) these types of fish.

I have a betta that exhibited similar behaviour shortly after I got him. My 'treatment' of it was very unorthodox. I put him in a tank with fish I knew would disturb him because when he was disturbed he would make an effort to right himself. In his case, that was my (still growing the first two I had) brichardi tank... Well, his fins got pretty torn, but he survived (and still has scars) and has been with me now for about three years... It took him about a week to get over the floating problem.

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I have a neon dwarf gourami like the one in the profile. It did that weird on it's side swimming thing after it tried to jump out of the tank and smashed into the condensation tray. I was very concerned for it especially when all the other fish started picking on it. It's fine now so I've put it down to being stupid and stunning itself.

This should probably be in the Labyrinth Lounge...

Mariosim has a good point, the fish just could have been suffering stress from shipping. I have a dwarf gourami in my tank though, and he doesn't exhibit any behavior like you described, but when he was first introduced to my tank he laid on his side a little, and was very lethargic. This went away after three days or so, but he never floated up to the top of the tank.
So I told the worker (who was already grabing out the other dead fish in other tanks)
I'd keep an eye on this LPS, and stay away from it if you see a lot of dead fish or fish exhibiting weird behavior like the gourami you saw.
HTH

-Formerly known as the Ferretfish