Gourami not eating

[ah_hup]

help. i have a gourami which is so anaeroxic. its so thin i could almost see its bone.. and its eyes are both sunken inside its socket. i tried throwing food right in front of it, but it doesnt seem interested at all.. and it hasn't been eating for a few days. but it's still swimming around normally just that it's not as active as the rest of the other fishes. what could be the problem?

my tank is a L 30 x W 18 x H 22

in it are 5 dwarf gourami and 2 tetras.

[benny]

Fishes that are emanciated to the point of only bones and have sunken eyes are often at the end of their lifespan as a result of internal bacterial/parasite infection.

Best to isolate this fish and give it a quite place to spend the rest of the month.

Cheers,

[GaspingGurami]

IME dwarf gouramis dont live longer than 2 years for me. Probably due to inbreeding. I get the same symptoms as you described. The end seems slow and probably painful for the fish.

[ah_hup]

erm.. what is inbreeding?

and sad. the fish didn't make it through the night.

[aquarius]

From your description of your fish, there is a possiblity that it has some internal bacteria or parasite and is in an advanced stage. If it's old age than it'll still feed but it won't put on weight anymore and the head area and belly will usually start to be sunken. Basically it'll just waste away. I've had fishes which i've kept for a yr plus to 2yrs and which will usually start to waste away slowly.

BTW sorry to hear that your fish didn't make it. Inbreeding is breeding between the parent fish and the offspring

[doppelbanddwarf]

I have experienced a few fishes like this.
Its most likely to be internal parasite which is very hard to cure even with medication.
By the time the belly looks sunken in it is almost always beyond cure