Fat platy - need help!

If I'm not mistaken, pinecone fish are most definitely dropsy fish. To address a question you asked before, if she's still not lookin' all spikey, I would certainly try feeding her the shelled pea-- it couldn't hurt, and if it fixes the problem, you won't have to put her through the stress of treating/medicating her for more serious ailments.

And sorry if I spouted old info at you, I get used to giving the back story when writng to n00blets, and it becomes a habit. >_<

ETA: Oh yeah, and personally, I don't think that her giving birth earlier necessarily rules out the possibility of her being pregnant now. I'm not certain, but I think platies can get pregnant multiple times from a single platy booty-call. But I admit I'm not positive about that.
 
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She is pretty spiky... so I will attempt treatment beginning tomorrow. However, I have yet to receive answers regarding it:

1. As far as maintaining high oxidation levels at the higher temperatures... how might I go about that?

2. Romet B - What exactly is it, where would I get it, how much does it cost? Is it even worth it to try, or is my platy basically beyond any possible healing?

And one other question - is the infection or whatever is causing the dropsy contagious? Or... I'm figuring that it would depend on exactly what is causing it, therefore it could or could not be contagious - right? And if this is correct, then what should I do to ensure that none of the other inhabitants in the tank aquire 'dropsy'?
 
denali1234 said:
Your right Mandi, platies can actually store sperm from mating one time for four months. That's a lot of child support for one booty call.
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Yea, I was thinking about that, but wasn't sure... thanks for the clarification.
 
Symptoms: Bloating of the body, protruding scales.

Dropsy is caused from a bacterial infection of the kidneys, causing fluid accumulation or renal failure. The fluids in the body build up and cause the fish to bloat up and the scales to protrude. It appears to only cause trouble in weakened fish and possibly from unkempt aquarium conditions.
An effective treatment is to add an antibiotic to the food. With flake food, use about 1% of antibiotic and carefully mix it in. If you keep the fish hungry they should eagerly eat the mixture before the antibiotic dissipates. Antibiotics usually come in 250 mg capsules. If added to 25 grams of flake food, one capsule should be enough to treat dozens of fish. A good antibiotic is chloromycetin (chloramphenicol). Or use tetracycline. If you feed your fish frozen foods or chopped foods, try to use the same ratio with mixing. As a last resort add at most 10 mg per liter of water. Also, if unkempt conditions are the suspected cause, correct it.

Scale Protrusion

Symptoms: Protruding scales without body bloat.

Scale protrusion is essentially a bacterial infection of the scales and/or body. A variety of bacterium could be the culprit here, as can unkempt aquarium conditions.
An effective treatment is to add an antibiotic to the food. With flake food, use about 1% of antibiotic and carefully mix it in. If you keep the fish hungry they should eagerly eat the mixture before the antibiotic dissipates. Antibiotics usually come in 250 mg capsules. If added to 25 grams of flake food, one capsule should be enough to treat dozens of fish. A good antibiotic is chloromycetin (chloramphenicol). Or use tetracycline. If you feed your fish frozen foods or chopped foods, try to use the same ratio with mixing. As a last resort add at most 10 mg per liter of water. Also, if unkempt conditions are the suspected cause, correct it.

I got this from the link below:

http://animal-world.com/encyclo/fresh/information/Diseases.htm#Dropsy

From what I understand Dropsy is almost always fatal, and is a symptom of something else going wrong in the aquarium. I do NOT think it is contagious. Hope this helps.
 
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As a matter of fact denali, I just found that exact info last night when I was looking for stuff about dropsy. And I had a question about it - as far as meidcating the flakes, is it okay if the other fish get some of that food too? Because I really don't see how I'll be able to feed only the dropsy platy...

And where would I be able to get chloromycetin or tetracycline

Well, I appreciate the responses from everybody, but it appears that I keep getting more people telling me that it's dropsy and no one answering my recent questions...

1. As far as maintaining high oxidation levels at the higher temperatures... how might I go about that?

2. Romet B - What exactly is it, where would I get it, how much does it cost? Is it even worth it to try, or is my platy basically beyond any possible healing?
 
You should be able to get chloromycetin or tetracycline at your LFS. They will be sold under different brand names, so check the small print for the terms chloromycetin or tetracycline.

I'm sorry that your platy is going through this.

You may also want to research euthanasia. Not that I'm saying you should euthanize this fish necessarily, but it may reach that point and it's good to be prepared.

(Although my fish are all healthy, I keep a bottle of clove oil on hand in case of emergency after seeing a bloodfin tetra who somehow got his/her body cut almost in half but was still alive and suffering horribly at an LFS. You can read my correspondence with the LFS involved at http://freeanimals.org/lettertopetsmart.html. You never know when you will need to euthanize a fish. :()
 
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Rosemary said:
You should be able to get chloromycetin or tetracycline at your LFS. They will be sold under different brand names, so check the small print for the terms chloromycetin or tetracycline.

I'm sorry that your platy is going through this.

You may also want to research euthanasia. Not that I'm saying you should euthanize this fish necessarily, but it may reach that point and it's good to be prepared.

(Although my fish are all healthy, I keep a bottle of clove oil on hand in case of emergency after seeing a bloodfin tetra who somehow got his/her body cut almost in half but was still alive and suffering horribly at an LFS. You can read my correspondence with the LFS involved at http://freeanimals.org/lettertopetsmart.html. You never know when you will need to euthanize a fish. :()
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Right, thanks for the info. That's horrible that petsmart would neglect a fish like that!
 
danas90 said:
Right, thanks for the info. That's horrible that petsmart would neglect a fish like that!
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Hi, just read your post. I've been dealing with my own fishy issues... Anyway, liv2padl has some really good advice there. My gourami w/dropsy lost the battle, and I am fighting a bacterial infection that's been moving through my tank to no avail. What I do to increase oxygen is to add a bubble stone or wand if treating in a filterless quarantine, or I put the air bubble adapter to my jet heads on my main aquariums when treating the entire tank. Just raise your heater temperature to raise the aquarium temps. I never found the romet b, but followed liv2padl's advice using Maracyn 2 instead which is supposed to help dropsy. In his last days I had him on Kanaplex an antibiotic, and an erythrmyacin gel food that I was gently force feeding him.

Good luck but once the scales go pinecone, I think it's just a matter of time.
Mary.
 
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