more help please

Sadly, like the so-called 'German' Rams Dwarf Gouramis which come from 'breeders' in the far East are pretty woeful - looking good (sometimes) in the shops, but quickly deteriorating once here far a while.

The Dwarf Gouramis are now so bad that my suggestion would be to give them a very wide berth.

For this reason I would suggest you try to look for them having been sourced from Eastern Europe - these are normally a lot stronger and stand a chance of living for more than a few weeks.
Unfortunately the demand for European-bred fish is stretching resources from that part of the world and at least one unscrupulous exporter is buying in far Eastern fish then selling them on as European-bred fish! So it would seem that even this ploy isn't foolproof. I know, I've bought some myself quite recently with (largely) disastrous consequences.

If all of your other fish in the tank you're losing the Gouramis from are fine then those are potentially the problem.

I have seen (and bought) some lovely Honey Gouramis recently which have been really good (two pairs, which regularly breed). They mightn't have quite the colouration of the Dwarfs, but the males are still little stunners. I'd suggest you try to find some of these.

But, if you're especially keen on the Dwarfs then try to find someone selling them as pairs - it has been my experience that many far-Eastern exporters only provide males whereas many of the European sellers like to export pairs, even though the females are less attractive.

Has anyone else noticed this?

John