Dropsy or parasite? Need help with diagnosis.

[angyles]

4 days ago my dwarf gourami bloated up. He also has lots of stringy white waste. I've tried internal parasite medecine and it hasn't worked. It came is fizz tab form. That was all I could find. He's still soooo bloated and I don't know what to do. Should I treat for dropsy instead? I really didn't want to mess with antibiotics. Should I continue with the fizz tabs even though I've completed the doses it calls for? He's not eating now. I have a hard time just watching him slowly die.

[wetmanNY]

"Dropsy" is an antique term for the edema that fills all the tissues with liquid when basic liver and kidney functions fail at the end. People used to imagine it was just a question of "impacted bowels" and that Epsom salts would help the fish pass a bowel movement yada yada yada...

It can be hard to have to euthanize a fish in terminal stages of decline. Some parasites will leave a fish as soon as it's dead, I'm told. So it's always wise to remove a fish beforehand.

[Cichlid Woman]

Stringy white stuff is an internal parasite, I think. Any chance you can try another med--quick?

-- Pat