# Gourami turning into a puffer



## higginsoft (Feb 22, 2008)

I have a gouramis (no idea of its actual name, but its reddish-orange) that has started swelling like a puffer. It stays at the top mostly, but it will swim in the upper fifth or sixth area of the tank. It's not dormant, except when I walk up to the tank to feed them, it will usually duck up behind something. It will eat, but not aggressively.

The tank is a 55 gallon community tank with other gouramis, three angel fish, six danios, a few mollies and guppies, red tail shark, clown loach, two kulhii loaches, two ghost cats, a glass fish, a couple of cori's, a pleco (rarely seen), and a peacock eel (rarely seen). I've got them all a couple of months ago, all of them small at the time, none are particularly big yet, but of course they are growing.

Nothing seems to be particularly aggressive toward the gouramis, other than maybe this one that is blowing up, which might chase off one of the blue gouramis if it comes in its immediate space.


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## gookaluda (May 8, 2008)

It would be great if you could possibly post a picture?
It could be bloat.....what are you feeding them and how much?


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## higginsoft (Feb 22, 2008)

I feed them a variety of things in an auto feeder, but truthfully, the angels and danios are the biggest pigs of the group. None of the gouramis are big eaters. From what is dropped by the auto feeder, except for the sinking items I add for the bottom feeders to get (which isn't much), the flake and any other type of floating or slowly sinking food is gone in less than a minute. Its an absolute feeding frenzy when that thing releases. At other times during the day, I may drop in some other sinking type food, algae or other sinking waffers or tablets (I break them up in smaller pieces) for the bottom feeders. Some of the other fish my go down a nibble on these items, but never this one gourami in question. I'll try to get a picture posted.


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## gookaluda (May 8, 2008)

It could be a cinnamon or a Blood-Red Gourami.
It could be Dropsy (Ascites). Are the scales coming out?
Some frequent water changes might work. I think they even have a medication for this.
You could treat the tank with a gram-negative anti-bacterial medication, such as Maracyn-Two over five days


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## djrichie (May 15, 2008)

easy way to tell if its dropsy is look at it from the top..... does it scales look like a pine cone..... there are meds for dropsy but generally its fatal.... you really need to move the fish to a QT.... it also could be just bloating from over feeding, try feeding it some blanched peas.... so it that helps with the bloating


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## forguppies (Dec 18, 2006)

It could also be swim bladder disease. Check pictures on google for both diseases (dropsy & SBD) and compare it to your fish. Like gookaluda said, it sounds like dropsy. That is highly contagious and it's due to bad water quality or bad conditions.


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## higginsoft (Feb 22, 2008)

Well, here's the deal with it. I had to leave on vacation for about ten days, and the fish only got fed by an automatic feeder. When I got back, the fish was looking normal again. Now that I've returned, occasionally give them a feeding in between their normal auto feeding, and the guy is starting to puff up again. So, I've stopped the in between feedings other than to throw in a few sinking things for the bottom feeders.


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## forguppies (Dec 18, 2006)

So, is solved. It was overfeeding...


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