Dwarf Gourami & Dropsy: Have I got a chance?

[kassany]

So I am a total newb as it were at fish. I'm taking it slow and only have one fish (so thankfully I don't have a risk of infecting any others), a dwarf blue gourami named Captain Jonathan "Bluegills" Jones III, in a fairly small 2 gallon tank (if I can get him to survive until I get my own place after university I am going to try my hand at a community tank). Anyways, when I was doing a 25% water change earlier tonight I noticed he seemed a little puffy and had scales sticking out a little bit.

I headed straight to Google and determined it must be dropsy, and ran to the pet store and bought some Maracyn-Two and followed the directions on the package, adjusting of course for scale since the packaging was for a 10 gallon tank but they didn't have anything smaller.

My question then is, do I have a snowball's chance in hell of having this fish survive? I got him this past Christmas and have become rather attached to him. All the information I've looked at so far has said "screw it your fish is dead, cut his head off", but all the pictures I've seen have been of disgustingly bloated fish nowhere near the proportions of my own.

I will say, I put the medication in about two hours ago. Within about fifteen minutes he got up from the bottom of the tank and started swimming around (he's been listless for the past few days, I didn't realize it was an infection forming even when he wasn't eating... kinda feel dumb about that now), and just now when I went to look at him the "acorning" of his scales has gone down so that now he's just a little "rough around the edges". But whenever he stops swimming he kind of tilts to one side, like maybe 30 degrees off center.

When I did water tests last week, everything looked normal as far as I could tell. pH was 7, NO2 and NH3 came back blank, and "general hardness" was none also. I use a basic carbon filter, and don't have any real plants, just some fake ones and a pirate ship for decoration (the first couple of months I had a lot of fake plants but he kept getting stuck in them so there's only 2 in there now)

Sorry if I'm giving too much information here, but I guess I tend to do that when I'm nervous... I just don't want to miss anything that might be important.

Thanks in advance!

 

[kassany]

Heh, sorry to bug you guys again, I just wanted to update that it looks like, as far as I can tell, the dropsy has died down (well the swollen part anyways). I'll continue the meds for the full 5 days that it says on the box, but I'm so very relieved.

Perhaps take a look at some pictures with your trained eyes to make sure I'm not missing anything? Sorry about quality, but I think he fears my camera (or more likely the flash coming out of it) so its difficult to get a good picture because I have to dart in and out before he can swim behind his boat again .

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[liv2padl]

Dropsy, is actually a "symptom" and not a disease in itself. the standing scales and blown up appearance are the result of swelling within the tissues and organs of the fish due to a build up of fluids in the kidneys and an inability to excrete this fluid in a normal manner. in other words, advanced kidney disfunction.

the problem with treating this disease is that there are a number of "potential" causes: bacterial infection, parasites, cancerous tumors, virus', internal fungal infections or sudden temperature drop of more than 3 degrees.

If the cause is bacterial, the swelling typically comes on pretty rapidly. if swelling is gradual then one or more of the other potential causes are more likely. unfortunately, treatment is most often useless at this point due to the advanced state of the disease process. When the illness, whatever the cause, has progressed far enough to cause internal swelling, the concommitant internal damage is usually too extensive to be repairable.

the latest research has shown that if the disease cause is bacterial and if the disease process is caught early enough, treatment with Romet B, a broad spectrum antibacterial, *may* be effective when used concurrent with an increase in water temperature to 84-86F for 2 weeks minimum.

BE CERTAIN to maintain HIGH OXYGEN LEVELS during such treatment since at these temperatures, water holds significantly less oxygen at these higher water temperatures. one of the suspected bacterial precursers to the disease process -- Aeromonas, is killed at these temperatures.

concurrently add 1/8 teaspoon of EPSOM SALT -- per 5 gallons of water. feeding foods soaked in ERYTHROMYCIN will kill the second suspected bacteria, Mycobacterium. in rare cases popeye has been found to be caused by Edwardsiella etarda. this is found *only* in fish that have been bred in outdoor ponds -- the functional bacteria in this case is carried by frogs. while fair to good results in treatment have been found by feeding Romet B., even better results have been found using injectable chloramphenicol or amakacin. this is best done by your veterinarian.

If parasites are a known cause, treat for them first for 3 days increasing the temperature to 86oF as fast as possible.

EPSOM SALT may help reduce the internal pressure casued by the swelling. extremely good aeration is necessary here due to the use of such high temperatures.

NEVER USE SALT (sodium chloride, a.k.a aquarium salt) for treatment of dropsy. this will KILL your fish in a very short time. the affected fish are already having a difficult time getting rid of salts due to kidney disfunction. this causes the blown up appearance and concurrent scale standing. the osmotic inbalance caused by addition of sodium to your tank water will make this condition far worse.

EPSOM SALT on the other hand, does not pass through the walls of the gut or gills and will extract water OUT of the surrounding tissue into the gut where it *may* be excreted.

 

[nursie]

You do need to keep up with water changes becasue sick fish need the water to be as clean as possible. You need to replace the meds in the water after the water change, or change water before you are due to add more.
I've had fish with a mild injury and I try water changes first...before adding anything.
If the fish is improving after you started treatment, that is encouraging. I've had dwarf gouramis with dropsey before and lost them. Good luck! liv2padl has given you some great advice!