All Of My Odessa Barba Are Dying - Help

[chipsncheese]

Hi

I've had a group of 5 odessa barbs for about six months until a couple of weeks ago when one of them bloated up and its scales were sticking out, it was like a balloon and died after a couple of days. I assumed dropsy through some sort of bacterial infection and dosed the tank with a general tonic which contain epsom salts. A few days later another went the same way, not as much bloating mostly around the middle of the fish. I quarantined it and dosed it with melafix and an anti internal bacterial medicine. This didnt seem to do much good and this one died too after roughly a week. A few more days later another one has it, I seperated it again and dosed with a broad spectrum antibiotic but still the same result. Now I have 2 left and another has the same symptoms.

This only seems to effect the barbs and none of the other fish in the tank. It seems to take one fish at a time and nothing I have tried seems to have any effect.

Any advice would be much appreciated as I dont want to lose all my barbs. Any ideas?

 

[mattlee]

swelling and scales sticking out sounds very much like dropsy to me and is very hard to treat with good effect im affraid.

i have a group of praecox rainbows and the same happened one by one they died but the other fish werent troubled, they had the same symptoms as you describe until eventually all but 2 had gone! eventually 1 of my SAE's went the same way so i removed the remaining 2 and never had a problem since. i think it can be passed on by the fish nibbling on the dead fish if left in the tank or on the poo they have dropped.