# Dwarf Gourami rocking and darting. Need advice!



## janintn (Jun 30, 2011)

I have a 55 gal tank with an eheim filter that is very lightly stocked. Water was good until a few days ago and tonight I found both my heater and filter unplugged (!!??) and, of course, no one knows how THAT happened! To say the least the filter had soured and required a full clean and I did a 25% water change and am bringing the temp back slowly. Sooooooooo water NOT so good now .

My problem is a dwarf gourami that began rocking back and forth about a week ago. I researched on the web and seems parasites of some type would be to blame. I have checked him over good with a magnifying glass and see nothing amiss but do know some can be microscopic so did a treatment with Jungle Parasite stuff... (it escapes me but it is late!) The directions say you can do a second treatment if needed in 48 hrs with a 25% water change and since he was still rocking away I added the second dose and changed out the water. It has now been 3 days since the 2nd treatment and he is still rocking and now darting about like a madman. He didn't eat yesterday or today, just sits under a big faux log and rocks and rocks! Tonight I noticed his poo was white and I know that is not right either. I had to euthanize another gourami and my little blue betta buddy tonight so don't want to have to do that again! Any help would be appreciated. Thanks so much!
Jan


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## emc7 (Jul 23, 2005)

Too bad its stopped eating. Best medicine for internal parasites is medicated food. Jungle has one, but it a largish, hard pellet and some fish won't take it. Seachem has metronidazole powder which you can add to thawed frozen food and refreeze . Angelsplus has several medicated flake foods you can mail order http://www.angelsplus.com/FlakeMedicated.htm, good to stockpile, but unlikely to help in time if you have to wait on shipping. People also feed garlic or garlic oil soaked food. It stimulates appetite and has anti-parasite properties. 

Easily available water treatments are pretty much limited to metronidazole (Metro) and Praziquantel. I think the jungle fizz-tabs have both. The seachem metro powder can be added to the water and Prazi-Pro is a great source of praziquantel and stable enough to keep on hand. Either may be enough to keep the stuff from spreading, but likely won't save the affected fish if you haven't already seen improvement. You still may want to remove the sick fish and gravel-vac to reduce the odds of other fish getting sick. Carbon will take out either med out of the water.


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