Yesterday morning I noticed that one of my female guppies was swollen and looked like she had dropsy. I've moved her into a sick tank, bumped the temp. up to 82 F, upped the aeration, and added 1/8th teaspoon of epson salt. Should I do water changes daily, or weekly? Is there anything else that might help her (nothing too expensive please, I love her but this is just a hobby).
Dropsy Cure?
- Thread starter Porcelina
- Start date
I wouldn't recommend increasing the temperature. By increasing the temperature, you are actually increasing the metabolism of your fish where by requiring the fish to expend more energy to sustain the vital function.
Unless you are 100% sure your fish has dropsy, them Maracyn –2 is all you need. But various diseases display some of the same symptoms. Therefore I recommend using Maracyn –1 ( for gram +ve bacteria) and Maracyn –2 (for gram –ve bacteria).
Rohn
Unless you are 100% sure your fish has dropsy, them Maracyn –2 is all you need. But various diseases display some of the same symptoms. Therefore I recommend using Maracyn –1 ( for gram +ve bacteria) and Maracyn –2 (for gram –ve bacteria).
Rohn
Usually if a fish has true dropsy, you're going to lose it either way. True dropsy causes severe internal organ damage, and even if you're able to medicate properly and treat the cause, the fish often has an extremely shortened lifespan regardless.
Alot of what people call "sucessfully treated dropsy" is usually just a regular old bacterial infection that caused dropsy-like symptoms.
Alot of what people call "sucessfully treated dropsy" is usually just a regular old bacterial infection that caused dropsy-like symptoms.
Sorry for your loss 
Just some other info about Dropsy...once the fish has the pineconing look then about 99% of the time it's too late and the fish will almost certainly die unfortunately. In order to try to effectively treat dropsy, you have to catch it in it's early stages which is difficult because some of the first symptoms shown look a lot like other more common diseases.
Most of the time usually when we catch dropsy it's too late as we can positively ID it by the scales sticking out creating the pine cone look.
You can try to ease the discomfort of the fish by adding the epsom salts like you did, although I really don't know how effective it is as far as making the fish less uncomfortable. I would honestly just humanely euthanise any fish with dropsy, but that's just my opinion. Each circumstance is different.
Do a google search on Dropsy and read up on it...it's one of the nastier diseases and one of the most difficult if not THE most difficult one to treat.
Just some other info about Dropsy...once the fish has the pineconing look then about 99% of the time it's too late and the fish will almost certainly die unfortunately. In order to try to effectively treat dropsy, you have to catch it in it's early stages which is difficult because some of the first symptoms shown look a lot like other more common diseases.
Most of the time usually when we catch dropsy it's too late as we can positively ID it by the scales sticking out creating the pine cone look.
You can try to ease the discomfort of the fish by adding the epsom salts like you did, although I really don't know how effective it is as far as making the fish less uncomfortable. I would honestly just humanely euthanise any fish with dropsy, but that's just my opinion. Each circumstance is different.
Do a google search on Dropsy and read up on it...it's one of the nastier diseases and one of the most difficult if not THE most difficult one to treat.