# Tank is cycling with TSS and one of the Dwarf Gouramis seems ill!



## Priya (Dec 31, 2013)

It's day 3 of cycling with TSS (left the Prime treated water in the tank for a day before adding TSS. This shouldn't be causing any problem). I currently have 2 dwarf gouramis in there. They were both fine, very active fish when they were first added to the tank. Then due to evaporation, I topped up the tank earlier today with 25/26 hour old treated water (treated it with Prime. Let it sit for that long before topping off). I was told that this will be fine. So I did it. Everything was fine until a few hours after that..when the orange dwarf started hanging by the heater. I knew right away it's not normal. The blue one is fine...very energetic, dancing around etc..but the orange one stopped. I have also noticed some kinda whitish/discoloured patch near its belly. Before you say 2 DGs shouldn't be in a tank, please don't. I don't know whether it's actually true or not...and I may not know everything, but I have done it 3 times before and had ZERO aggression issue on all times, and I have ZERO aggression issue now as well. The reason I failed in this hobby before is due to ignorance and bad advice from people regarding water cycling/chemistry etc. Not due to DG aggression issues. This time I don't know what's going on because as far as I know, I am/was doing it right!

Right now my main concern is to know what's going on and if I can save this fish and how. I can't make any water changes because TSS is in there. But I know i should do a PWC. What can I do in this situation and how can I make sure my blue one doesn't suffer the same? Since tank is in cycling phase..there will be ammonia etc present and my source water does have ammonia present in it (city of Toronto water. Go figures. I recently found out about ammonia after doing a test before having this set up)..so I am not bothering with my API master kit. I'm pretty sure ammonia is hovering at .25ppm. I feed the fish very little every other day...so no spike should happen due to food/waste. PLEASE, PLEASE HELP.


----------



## TheOldSalt (Jan 28, 2005)

What you should DO is get those fish out of there and treat them in a bucket, tub, or other container before they contaminate the tank so badly that you're forced to treat it anyway, assuming it's not already too late.


----------



## TheOldSalt (Jan 28, 2005)

Then you can do whatever needs doing without disrupting your tank. All new fish should be quarantined to prevent these very kinds of problems.


----------



## BettaGuy (May 6, 2012)

well since the orange one is now gone watch the blue one closely. Was the spot on the orange one kind of fluffy? Then it would be a fungal disease. There are many great medicines for that out there but I personally don't know any specific ones that are great so I can't help with that. If your lucky the blue one didn't get anything and the tank is fine, if not you'll have to treat the whole tank like TOS said


----------



## Priya (Dec 31, 2013)

Yeah I took the fish out instead of leaving it in there and disrupt the cycling. It didn't survive. The spot was a roundish, discoloured patch. Not fuzzy or anything like that..just discoloured (lighter than the rest of the fish) and it showed on both sides. Oh well...It didn't survive . I guess it was that infamous "Gourami disease" that sometimes they contract out of the blue. The blue one is doing great though...it's very active and stuff. I am keeping an eye on him/her. So far so good..almost been a week


----------



## TheOldSalt (Jan 28, 2005)

Well, that's good.


----------



## Superfly724 (Sep 16, 2007)

I'm not sure what TSS is, but I'm assuming it's some type of fishless cycling product? If so, there's not much point in adding it if you have fish in there. It defeats the purpose of fishless cycling to have fish in there. I don't really believe in fishless cycling to begin with, especially if it's preventing you from doing water changes which are the most essential part of keeping an aquarium healthy. If you're worried about the fish not being able to handle the cycle, I would either use some of Seachem's Stability or Brightwell's MicroBacter. They are bacteria in a bottle that will help to establish your bacteria colonies and make the cycle quicker and less stressful. 2 fish really shouldn't be too much of a bio-load anyways, and water changes will help reduce any toxic levels of Ammonia, Nitrite, or Nitrate.


----------



## BettaGuy (May 6, 2012)

TTS is tetra safe start and its a bb in a bottle product. Its not gonna harm the fish, and i have heard good things about it. Never used it personally though, I prefer doing things the natural way without any chemicals. Too many bottles to keep track of with the fertilizers as it is.


----------



## Ice (Sep 25, 2006)

Tetra products are garbage in my opinion. Never was a fan of Tetra products anyways. Get API brand instead.


----------

