Dropsy - I'm having 0 luck with my fish.

[Bethaliz]

As some of you know. My blue female betta from Petsmart died. So I got a red one from WalMart. My friend had got one and it was much more lively and in better condition than the one from petsmart. I've only had it for a few days, but I"m certian it has dropsy.

It's "pineconning". So I'm pretty sure it's dropsy. From what I read you can try and treat, but you might as well let the fish die, because it's had to treat and it will probly die anyway. and by the time you see the pineconning it's usually too late...............correct me if that's wrong.



I'm assuming that the fish had dropsy when I got it because it hasn't been here long enough to be that sick. is that acruate? Or could it have caught it from the last fish that died? I'm not sure. I did a partial water change and that before I added the new fish. But with the tank being cycled I didn't want to restart from scratch and stress out the new one. Was that the wrong thing to do??

Once this fish dies, before I think about getting a new one, I think I'll strip down the tank, sterilize everything with boiling water and do a fishless cycle. Do you think that's the best way to go about it? I don't want to keep bying fish for them to die. and I don't know why they keep dying.

[dramaqueen]

The bacteria that causes dropsy is very contageous so it seems to me that sterilizing everything would be a good idea. Dropsy can't be cured but some people say that putting the fish in an Epsom salt bath will help the fish expel the fluid under the skin. I'm so sorry to hear about your fish.

[Bethaliz]

Thanks I added a touch of salt, hopefully that will at least help the swelling. One other question I had is................What do I do about the Snail?

I had a clean up crew snail in there (as per petsmart). I could put him in with the other snail in the 10 gallon, but if it was in the same tank as the fish with dropsy..........and I don't want to contaminate the other fish.............and I want to sanitize the small tank and do a fishless cycle on it, before trying another betta............So the snail needs to come out........but what should I do about it?

[iamntbatman]

Invertebrates aren't at risk for the same diseases as fish have, so you should have no worries about a snail transmitting the disease to fish in other tanks.