Dead Honey Gourami With A Dark Lump

I'm sorry to hear that.


The filter won't have killed the fish, it will have sucked him against it after hew was dead, or possibly too weak to swim any more.

The black lump could have developed after he died - if he passed away just after you last looked in the tank he would have been dead several hours when you found him. If it is a tumour, it won't be infectious.


I know it is upsetting to lose fish but I would put it down to 'one of those things'. So many times our fish die and we don't know why. Fish breeding is big business and the conditions they are bred in leave a lot to be desired. And a lot of breeders use any fish to breed from not just fish in good health, and they don't cull the iffy fry. All this results in fish in shops that are less than 100% healthy I'm afraid. It is common to see fish with bent spines etc in shop tanks, but a lot of problems are internal where we can't see them.



I bought a trio of natural coloured honey gouramis a few months ago. The females are fine but the male never developed his proper colour. He then developed swimming problems and started sitting in the corner behind the filter. I found him dead a couple of weeks ago. Apart from being pale, he looked perfect, and I have no idea what was wrong with him.

Personally, I would try to get a female. This is not easy with the red variety.
If you would accept a natural coloured gourami - and could find a shop that stocks them - it is much easier to tell the gender. The fish profile on here shows photos of the natural coloured form. The two thumbnails show the male on the left and the female on the right. They clearly show the stripe along the side of the female. That stripe is the way you tell males from females. When the net goes in the tank, they all panic and males lose their colour giving a tank of beige fish - but the females are the ones with the stripes.
The next easiest to tell is the yellow form, and these are more common in shops. Again females have a stripe but not as pronounced as in the wild form. If you want a yellow female, choose the fish with the most obvious stripe.
Red honeys are almost impossible to tell. The fins are supposed to be longer and pointier in males but my females have longer pointier fins than the male did  It may be possible to tell from their behaviour, though it could well be different in shop tanks. When they have settled in to our tanks, males spend most of their time swimming round while females spend most of their time looking for food. The fish that are more up front, as it were, will be the males.

Thanks Rustle.

Sue, my LFS had yellow gouramis last time I was in so I'll make a point of heading back there. My only other option is P@H, which is where my red gouramis came from and they only carried the red variety last time I was in there, so I don't know anywhere local that I can find the natural colour. I've made a note of the photos and saved them to my phone so I've got reference for when I'm in the shop.

Sorry to hear about the gourami.

Thanks all for the continued condolences.

@Matt, The heater's at the opposite end of the back wall to the filter. The alpha gourami loiters in the corner with the heater and he's fine, but this is the beta and his territory was nearer to the filter. My heater's tucked away in the back, obscured by my silk plants, but nothing's close enough to trap a fish against the heater - I made sure of that - so I don't think it could have ended up pinned to it.

Or do fish press up to a heater even to the point of burning?

I've seen my bristlenose on the heater several times. My mudskippers also sit on their heaters, or use them to climb out of the water, which was something that I'd read about when researching them, and all information I found stated that the heater must have a cover because of this. Heaters in  my other tanks are just normal heaters and I've not seen any of my other fish resting on heaters.

Wow - that sounds lucky/promising. Good for you. 

That was lucky! Give her a couple of days to settle in.

I saw @fcmf mention heaters a few replies below. I tend to oversize heaters because a larger heater will not need to get as hot to transfer the same amount of energy as a small one and I would prefer to have the element running 'cool' for longevity reasons as well. Within reason it will not affect the temperature control performance (that is pants already ) nor will it cost more as it just on for less. The risky period is always as the tank comes up to temperature and the heater has to be on constantly for many hours - you will see the eliments glowing red inside the glass tube but this is avoided by the normal good practice of matching the temperature during water changes and you don't freeze the fins off the poor little devils either.

Unfortunately fish will often not look poorly until it's too late. In nature if they look unwell they are more likely to be targeted by predators.

It sounds like you may have had a poor batch of fish. That personally wouldnt surprise me when P@H are involved and I'm sure that others will agree. I'm afraid I'm not sure what else could be wrong with your gourami...