Dropsy

[Thezone]

my dwarf gouramis are dying of dropsy. so far, i have lost 5 of them. I read that dropsy may be caused by viral or bacterial infection in the water. anybody know if it is critical to remove the infected fish from the community and what is an effective cure? thks.

[Goondoo]

my dwarf gouramis are dying of dropsy. so far, i have lost 5 of them. I read that dropsy may be caused by viral or bacterial infection in the water. anybody know if is it critical to remove the infected fish from the community and what is an effective cure? thks.

YES!!! Remove immediately!!!

Somehow, there seems no cure for dropsy, at least that was what I was told.

[benetay]

If it's for dwarf cichlid it's almost no cure, when the final stage of dropsy are seen, it'll die in the next few days.

[michael lai]

Hi Thezone,
Please quarantine your fish or fishes immediately as they are quite contagious. I 've had limited success with coppersafe ( Mardel )and Befuran( yellow packet and yellow powder ). The problem is this, by the time you diagnosed the disease, secondary infection would have set in which makes it extremely hard to pinpoint and cure. I usually 'X' the affected fish as I cannot bear to see it 'bloated' and 'poppyeyed'. Hope the info helps.

[Thezone]

thanks for the fast response. just removed the fish. I only have the opportunity to observe my fish during the weekend. Hence, the fish would have been infected for a few days already. That explains why they keep dying one after another.

Now that I have removed the infected fish, how do I ensure that the virus is eradicated from the community? Do I have to do a high level of water change or do I need to introduce some medication as prevention (assuming the rest have not been infected yet)?

[michael lai]

Do not do anything now, a large water change will stress the fish even more. My 2 cents is observe first and action later, anyway you can never fully eradicate the disease. You can perhaps do a small water change, the healthy ones will not get infected so soon. If you insist, you might want to contemplate on a UV lamp to 'process' your tank's water.

[benny]

In the early stages of dropsy, before the scales are popping out, Waterlife's Otozin is known to be fairly effective. However, the key here is catching it early. Most of the time, when we see the fish with dropsy, it's already too late.

Dropsy can be caused by several factors, some of which are not contagious. Therefore, it isn't always necessary to quarantine fishes with dropsy. If you notice, you will almost never have more than 1 fish with dropsy at any one time, but for other diseases, it is always a few fishes at a go.

Cheers,

[Thezone]

now that you mentioned about the "one fish at each time" part, it makes sense. thanks, all for advice.