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How much salt should i put in....and how should i stop the two blue gouramis from hiding. SHould i isolate the orange with a breeding net?

my gourami does this ALL of the time.

He only comes out to eat, and when he is sleeping.

I am willing to conceed that you may be able to diagnose a disease without knowing your water parameters. If your fish are covered in spots...ich, if the scales stand out...dropsy, but if you don't know the parameters, how are you supposed to know WHY there sick. MOST disease is caused or triggered by environmental stress, ie water conditions, fighting, over crowding, poor diet, etc...,

you kneed to examine your tank as a whole, and rule out variables until you find the remaining abberations, and then proceed accordingly.

your fish is wounded, hiding, stressed. if its fighting, fine, but you must examine the variables in your fishes home.

if anyone disagrees, please let me know

I've seen dwarf gouramies biting other gouramies, leaving 'holes' in the skin to the point that the spinal cord can be seen. If the wound is circular, it might be the other gourami, or there might be some bacterial disease but its very noticeable when its bacterial because those left traces like white traces...

I just lost a red dwarf gourami because swim bladder disease. He was hiding through vegetation since i bought it, then two weeks later I had to sacrifice him... He ended up with an inflated belly.

mike, i disagree. you CAN know the problem of your fish sometimes, because amonia/nitrite poisoning has distinct signs, and if i'm not wrong, they don't include lessions of the skin.

WATER PARAMETERS PLEASE!!! YOU NEED TO TEST YOUR WATER VERY]]]VERY REGULARILY!!! you cant possibly identify the root causer of any fish problem without a basic knowledge of your water parameters. Do you have test kits?? If not, take a sample of your water to your lfs and have them test it, but ask for actual numbers, and not "your water is pretty good".

ammonia
pH
nitrates
nitites
hardness
Phosphates??


temprature

OK....i isolated the sick fish and put a tablespoon of salt.... But now i have new problems. Now the other blue gourami is hiding behind the tube AND the gourami that i seperated isnt eating anything. What should i do?

moving to hospital for some advise on medicating injured fish...

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Before you criticize someone walk a mile in their shoes. That way you're a mile away and you have their shoes.

the ammount of salt i don't remember. try running a google search of "fish desease" and "salt", and i'm sure you'll find out.

first you should isolate the suspected to be sick. first, because he might transmit the desease. second, he should be left alone if he's to survive.

to achieve goal one, you must remove the sick from the tank completely, put it in another tank or a bucket (don't forget oxygen and water condition!), and replace the tank water partially several times.

the aggressive one might calm down when population density drops.

I have a ten gallon tank with two filers. Ones a regular filtr and the other is an undergravell filter. There is a tube that comes out of the undergravel filter and the corner of my tank. My blue gourami has been hidding at that corner from 3 days now. He hasn't moved from that one spot. I thought he was dead at first, but when i hit the tank, he moved. Does anyone know what he;s doing and y he;s been staying there their for so long.

where is this wound on the fish'es body?

from your description, the red gourami is using a regular butting manuever. nothing that should hurt your fish so badly. is the lession growing?
the red might have caused it, but my guess is that it grew because of a secondary infection.
i'd say use the antibacterial for now. first, this wound must not get infected. the salt will help the healing process and kill parasites.
also, take out the sick fish immediately and put it in quaranteen tank (if you don't have one ready, put it in some other container with dechlorinated water, and tuck it somewhere quiet and little dark. replace water every few days.
for the rest of the tank, have emergency water change of 25-50%, wait two-three days, and do it again. you don't want to take the chance of an infection taking your tank down.

OK....i was just looking at the fish for a while... The wound is pretty big. Its a bout a centimeter wide and has penetrated the skin. Its maybe half a cenitmemter or more deep. It looks pretty bad. The red gourami seems to be butting his head to the 2 blue gourami tails. The gourmi hiding is the one with the wound. I have a anti-bacterial medecine that worked vey well last time my gourami got sick. Last time, my fish was siclk with some disease that made it blow up like double its size. I forgot what its called.And it says to use it for open wounds. Should i use that or salt? I baught the medicine at petco...and the guy working there said to use it enytime someting like this happend. Do you have any explantation for the huge wound?

is the wounded the same fish that won't move?
or are both of the blue gouramis wounded?

first of all, isolate the fish suspected to be sick.
then, add a little salt to the tank (run a search on dosage. i can't recall it from memory). the salt should help the wounded fish to combat infection.
second, i'm not sure the wound is done by the yellow gourami. they tend to have their way to fight, which include showing their wide sides to each other, posing, and even ramming each other when it gets really ugly (i read about a gourami acting as a torpedo against other gouramis that resulted in death), but biting? maybe, never heard of it.

try to look carefully at the wound, and describe it as accurately as possible. where is it located? how big is it? is it round or jagged? is there any trace of internal bleeding? is the fish reacting to food?
did you see how the yellow gourami actually wounded the blue ones, or do you induce it from their general behavior?


if after careful check of the small wounds you get to the conclusion that the yellow one is to blame, take it away to prevent further injury, and let the blue gouramis time to heal before trying to introduce it back in the tank.

if you can't isolate or remove any fish, at least give them somewhere to hide. rearange your rock to give them cover or insert a plastic box, for example, to make an emergency shelter with. if your fish is "only" terrorized, he should have someplace he can feel safe in, and he will be ok.

you asked what should you give your fish. for now, except salt, NOTHING. it is so for the same reason you don't take any medication when you're sick until you have a diagnosis. giving your fish wrong medication might weaken it further.

if for any reason i don't seem coherent, that's because i'm very tired by now (2am), and so i will check again tommorow to see if i helped at all.:%)

I think i figured out what going on.....I have one yellow gourami and two blues. The yellow one keeps chasing the 2 blues and bitting them. I just discovered small wounds on the 2 blue gouramis. I think thats y one of them are hiding. WHAT SHOULD I DO!

Ive had these gouramis for like 3 years now...How do i check the perameters? (what does that even mean....lol) Its still in that one area....it wont move. If its sick...what do i give it? None of my fish have ever been sick and i have no fake leaves or anything in the tank instead of some rocks. I have 3 gouramis....and 3 algea eaters living together. I;ve never had a problem like this in the three years i've had these fish so im really not exxpirineced in sick....or stressed fish....

is it seems "anchored" in place? does your gourami seems to get stuck in the tubing?
if so, i think it is sick
they tend to anchor themselves when they feel bad, but not when they're acting timid. then they seem to like to cover with leaves, filters or whatever overhead, but not to stick to anything.
if your fish is anchoring, make an emergency action. check water parameters. if they're OK, isolate the fish imediately. make a very good look at the fish, to see whether there are other symptoms, and try to diagnose it.

notice that gouramis sometimes anchor themselves for the night, usually at the bottom. they also tend to spread their degenerated fins (their "tentacles" while anchored for the night. this is usual behavior, but it should change when they wake up.

if it just hangs out covered, we're talking psychological stress. gouramis are pretty timid at start, so if it is new it might be the problem. they also get frightened by fast swimming fish nearby (my honey gourami almost got a heart-attack from the young danios and kept hidden for 3 weeks until he got used to them).

Dont tap the tank

it sound like your fish is already stressed, and fish are very sensitive to noise and vibrations.

check your water parameters


ammonia
nitrates
nitrites
pH
temprature

is the fish eating??
Are the other fish picking on it??
How old is the tank??



also, what kind of filters do you have?? Two filters in a ten gallon sounds pretty strong...Gouramis tend to prefer a gentler current without to much surface aggitation. They breath air from the surface.

do yo have artificial or real plants, rocks, decorations, driftwood etc.? Gouramis like these sort of things. They add to there sense of security.

Is it just a few days old from the LFS ?
What other Fish do you have in there?
Have you checked your water parameters lately ?
Lets look at some other possibilities before we assume its sick and start treating it......