Tank diseases, please help!

[tormentz]

Hi guys, need some help as a disease had struck my tank. 2 days ago one of my marble hatchet died and late last night, one of my balloon rams suffered the same fate. The ram had suffered from a small wound on it's forehead, a small piece of it's flesh was left hanging out, thus i had removed it from my main tank before it died in my isolation tank.

What was similar was that both of the dead fishes had a distinct red/pink belly when i found them dead. What disease does this indicate?

A week ago, another of my balloon rams died from dropsy (body bloated with scales sticking out) and just this morning one of my tiger platy died from pop eye. Some websites link pop eye to dropsy but there do not seems to be any mention of belly turning red. What medication should i use?

My tank's ph level is 7.5, i do not have other test kit so unable to provide additional measurement. I will be doing another 50% waterchange shortly, previous 50% waterchange was on tue. Hope the rest of my fishes will not be affected.

[michael lai]

Hi Tormentz,
It seems your tank is in a very bad shape. Dropsy usually occurs as a combination of circumstances, in particular the presence of a particularly virulent and infectious strain of bacteria combined with adverse environmental conditions. The protruding scales that you see is the result of a swelling stomach caused by build up of fluid in the abdominal cavity and swelling of organs. Skin turning a pale red is also one of the signs.

Pop eye is caused by Exophthalmia or exophthalmus, hi-nitrogenous wastes or bacterial, even by copper poisoning. My guess would be exophthalmia because of the adverse water conditions.

Treatment would be secondary now, getting the correct water parameters would be your priority now as it will solve your problem for good. I suspect your cories are also suffering because of the existing water conditions.

Likely suspect:
1) overcrowding.
2) overfeeding.
3) filter is overload or unable to handle.

I hope this helps, good luck.