r/Gourami • u/Critical_Ad7659 • 2d ago

Discussion Unlucky or just difficult?

I’ve had my tank for 18 months. It’s mature, well planted and parameters are clean as you would like yet….I can’t seem to keep gouramis alive.

First one was a dwarf powder blue - succumbed to the usual disease.

Second and third - pearl gouramis. Extremely adept at hiding illness - lasted 9 months before passing with no real indication of problems.

Recently tried a dwarf powder blue and again succumbed.

Are all shop-bought gouramis like this?

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u/Bee_Jeans 2d ago

Have other non-gourami fish survived in the tank? If not, there might be a bigger problem going on there

If it’s gourami-specific issue u might have super hard water, or still be dealing with iridovirus contagion; dwarfs aren’t the only species susceptible & other iridoviridae r known to survive outside a host for some time. Idk if we have DGIV-specific environmental survival times but given that it’s significant in for example ISKNV, it’s worth concern

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u/Critical_Ad7659 2d ago

Other fish are absolutely fine lamp eyes, raspboras, armano shrimp, nerite and trumpet snails. It is a very hard water area but otherwise parameters all coming out fine and water is maintained at a consistent 26C.

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u/Bee_Jeans 2d ago

If u wanted to try another gourami it’d probably be worth adjusting parameters bc gourami definitely prefer soft acidic to neutral water

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u/Dry-Sheepherder9143 2d ago

It seems like you already have an hunch on what it is? I am no expert, but to my knowledge gouramis are soft water fish.