Blue Gourami lying sideways

Question
Hello,

I stumbled upon this website in search of help with my Blue Gourami.  My wife noticed this morning that he has been lying on the bottom of the tank sideways, and breathing rather heavy.  When I came home, I was ready to scoop him out when he fired right up and swam around the tank.  His stomach is very bloated, and has been for about a week now.  Today though, is the first day he has been lying on the bottom of the tank.

Two weeks ago we cleaned the entire tank after losing a yellow flatie.  All of our other fish don't seem to have any problems other then the gourami.  

He is fed flakes twice a day along with the other fish, and the tank is around 80 degrees plus or minus depending if the light is on or not.  After changing the water we did add a solution to help with transistioning new fish into a tank; this has worked for us before when adding new fish to the tank.

I'm just curious if he's too sick to save, or if I should give him some time and see if he pulls through.

Thanks in advance,

Matthew

Answer
Hi Matthew;

He is probably constipated and it is affecting his swim bladder. Below is a link to an excellent article about it. It is mainly regarding bettas, but gouramis and bettas are in the same family, 'anabantidae', so it calls for the same treatment.

http://tinyurl.com/9ah5d

I hope he feels better soon......

At Your Service;
Chris Robbins