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My Golden Gourami has been growing more and more skittish during the past month. At first I thought I was making a big deal out of nothing, but now he's no longer even eating when I feed them, but coming out to scrounge the bottom 10 minutes after I feed the tank. It seems like he's fine when no one's around, but as soon as I come to do something to the tank (ie. feed, clean, etc.) he dashes from corner to corner, so fast I'm worried about him hurting himself. Once again it's a case of all my other fish looking fine.

I know that the two balas that my brother had (before I got into fishkeeping) were quite neurotic because they were lonely and eventually smashed themselves to death against the walls of the tank. Could this be the case with my gourami? I don't have any other Goldens in the tank because the last few times I've tried somebody ended up being chased all around the tank with their fins torn.

Could it just be that my 6' frame is too big and scary for him? Could it be something else that I didn't mention?

Correction: I just found one of my cories dead in the tank.

Two of the cories did have gas bubble disease weeks ago, I wonder if these were lingering effects of that. And they looked like they had made a full recovery too

I think I remember the gas bubble disease. It is possible that a microscopic bubble landed in a vital organ within the cory. However, I would have expected that sooner. I don't know the timeline for gas bubble disease and when you can consider the fish safe. If he had obvious bubbles outside, it is unknown if he had damage internally also and it just took time to catch up to him.

Did you ever find the source of the excess oxygen?

It was pretty much all of the things that you mentioned, cory, but especially my water source. I agitated it for 10 minutes before adding it to my tank this time and it was still giving off excess gas, so I set up the syphon so it would splash as it came in and it still gave off gas, and even after that I noticed an increase in the bubbles by the surface filter output.

The little guy that died was the one that had it the worst, so that's probably true.

[EDIT] On a happier note, it looks like everyone else is doing much better this water change. [/EDIT]

Last edited by plasmax000 at 21-Mar-2005 15:40

You probably mentioned it but where in the world are you?

Is it spring or is it fall?

Are you in an area with high elevation?

Is it well or tap water?

I'm just curious. If your source water is like that year round, you may want to consider a setup some people use with their SW tanks or tanks with fish that are sensitive.

If you have some place not too far from the tank that you can keep a rubbermaid bin with water in it, fill it a few days before your water change, or at least overnight with a bubbler, and then use a pump to move the water over to your aquarium on refill. Not always convenient, but definitely effective.

Water definitely needs to splash as it goes in. When I use my python, I hold it up and angle it so that water flowing through the tube gets exposure to the air as it moves. Then it drops into my filter box top where it then splashes down the water fall.

I'm in New England, it's late winter/early spring (still snow on the ground), and I'm using tap with NovAqua dechlorinator.

Last edited by plasmax000 at 21-Mar-2005 19:30

So it would have been winter when the gas bubble disease first showed up.

If its really cold out, the pipes get cold and the water can get hypersaturated as it warms when it comes into the house.

People using well water have the additional concern of thawing ice and snow with leaves that are decaying. It creates nitrogen gas in ground water. Deep wells also can be hypersaturated.

Just to check could this be having an effect on my gourami? Or is he super skittish because he's the only one of his kind in the tank? I'm really nervous because he's not coming out to feed, he just scrounges the bottom afterwards.

That would be a good question for the labrynth lounge where gouramis are discussed. That's where your experts are on that particular species