Do you notice other signs in the failing gouramis? Any other signs of disease? Do keep in mind that some diseases (like TB) will not reflect outward signs - and wasting away is harder to detect in gouramis (due to body shape). Could be that you have some gouramis being introduced that are naturally hardier than others - thus survive. I don't think it has anything to do with your male/male ratio. I have several mixed types of gouramis in my large tank (platinum, pearl, moonlight, honey, powderblue)- with the dwarfs, they're usually male because of the coloration (and harder to find dwarf females) - but with the larger gouramis, I do usually try and strive for male/female pairs. If I can't tell the difference in sex, I do try to always get a minimum of two gouramis of the same species. When my first moonlight female died, my moonlight male for whatever reason hooked up with the female marble angelfish. Whenever she spawns, he's the only one she doesn't chase away from the eggs. Weird. I did manage to find another nice female moonlight gourami and the male in is simply not interested in her. In any case - I think your deaths may be related to stress/disease as opposed to fish ratio. You may also want to consider changing your source for fish. I've found in my experience that if the tank is large enough and you don't get any aggressive species like kissing fish, golden or blue gouramis, gouramis in general get along. Also, if you find any aggressive behavior going on with the dwarf gouramis, try floating some plants at the top to help designate territory. All dwarf gouramis I've ever kept seem to appreciate floating plants.

Hi Peter; The video shows exactly what I was saying. That composted material was quite moist sticking to Bentlys gloves and compacting into a ball with little pressure on it. Bently even says that the material in the center was more moist and better work by the worms than the outer dryer portion of the bin he was using to keep the worms in. Moistness short of standing water is preferred by worms. That is not nessissarly perferred by humans who have to work in it in order to harvest the worms and compost. I personally keep my worms moist as possible just short of standing droplets of water and have never lost a worm to moisture level to high or a bin going anaerobic because of lack of oxygen during a bedding compaction and biomass explosion which is the cause of the condition of lack of oxygen in the first place. Making sure that the airflow is high volumn and bedding is not compacted fixes all the moisture problems. When some folks remove standing water by tilting bin and using a rubber bulb fixture of some type to remove standing water then by all means try some dry bedding matrerial to leach up the excess water. Letting a bin slowly go through its cycle of evaporation, condensation with the water on sides and top of bin will cause the worms to crawl to the water droplets on the sides and try to get on the tops inside surface where the water is because the water has lots of oxygen in it. Worms prefer wet to dry.

Hi Richard, Your story really moves me. I lost a very dear friend pretty much the same way three years ago. He was a lot like Andy, I think. It devastated me for some time, and I think of him a lot. One thing I noticed is that I've absorbed so much from him, the stuff I learned from him, and like jy la 02 says, I am carrying him around with me. It's almost like I'm having one of those seemingly endless conversations with him again sometimes. I wish there was a way I could play back his voice, the things he said through the gazillion hours of conversation we had. But, bummer that it is, you can't save people sometimes. I hate that part of it so much. I took a while, but thinking of him now feels good, as it has been long enough that my mind and my heart has made the adjustment. I think it will be that way with you and your dear friend Andy too. My friend was a tortured soul, and he hurt easily and too much, and he was also smart, witty as hell, knew how to have fun and loved getting to know people. Wow, I just thank the stars for having had the privilege of knowing him for as long as I did. He's a part of me and I am proud that I was one of his closest friends. He was a letter writer, would write from various parts of the globe. What I did after he left us was, once in a while, pull out one of those tattered envelopes, unfold and read the letter he obviously put a lot of time and love into. Depends on the person maybe, but I know even when it made me cry it also brought joy. I wish you the best. I can tell that you are a wonderful person to have had a friend like that.

My darling husband passed away 15 days ago. We knew each other for 8 years. He was very vibrant and full of life, had a good job house and car. Internally though he was suffering from chronic depression and was addicted to alcohol for many years even before i knew him. It got worse when he lost his mother 3 years ago. He would constantly talk about killing himself, praying that God would take his life. It was like seeing him die everyday. I prayed that he comes out of his depression, went to the psychiatrist to get meds for him, put him in rehab, gave him unconditional love but nothing seemed to work. He stopped eating and would just drink and watch the tv the whole day and night. Any attempt at communication was met with silence. He did not want to talk about anything. He gradually became so weak that he was bed ridden. I would coax him to eat or at least have some soup or juice but it was an uphill task. 3 years and 10 hospitalizations later he is no more. His body and organs were so weak that it could not process any medicines. I just wish that he would be alive today maybe he would have made an effort at living. People tell me that he is free from his worries and depression. I hope he is finally at peace. People say that your love was one sided but i know that he loved me and needed me. He would feel more depressed when i was not around him. I would call him my sunflower. In the end i feel he could not help himself. I miss my darling a lot.