Dropsy?

[natalie265]

I suspect that one of my female bettas may have recently died from dropsy. She slowly became bloated, giving her scales that characteristic pine cone look. I naively hoped she was just overeating, but soon she became lathargic and died. Now, one of my other female bettas is looking bloated too. Is this disease highly contagious? Should i remove the possibly infected fish? Is this disease common in bettas? I notice a previous poster is having a similar problem also with a female betta.

Tank details: 35 gallon planted, ph 6.8, ammonia/nitrate/nitrite all zero, tank mates: 9 black neon tetra, 2 honey gourami, 7 false julii cories, 1 african dwarf frog, 5 female bettas

 

[Athena]

Hi Natalie

No this disease is not considered highly contagious but it is very difficult to treat. If it is caught very early on then you can sometimes stop it in its tracks by using something like Octozin (by Waterlife) or similar med.

The best thing is to try to get to the cause of it and prevent it from killing off any more of your stock.
Dropsy is bacterial disease that can be caused by various things. I would just like to mention that keeping bettas in a community tank isn't usually recommended for many reasons (check over on the Betta forum for more info) and if a fish isn't happy with their tankmates they can become stressed - and stress lowers their immune system which in turn leads to disease.

It's not just incompatible tankmates but the whole tank environment/water quality/type of food that can stress a fish. So it's important to ensure all those things are correct and that there is nothing within the tank environment to cause stress. Have you noticed any bullying, aggression, persistent chasing/fin nipping etc going on?

I notice you said that your water stats were all good - what type of testing kit did you use?

Some people recommend isolating a fish that has dropsy - not particularly to prevent it spreading but just to lower the stress levels all round. As you may have noticed, a sick fish is often picked on and attacked by healthy fish. They may feel threatened and want to hide away. The more stressed they are the harder it becomes to treat the disease.

Regards - Athena

 

[natalie265]

Hi Natalie

No this disease is not considered highly contagious but it is very difficult to treat. If it is caught very early on then you can sometimes stop it in its tracks by using something like Octozin (by Waterlife) or similar med.

The best thing is to try to get to the cause of it and prevent it from killing off any more of your stock.
Dropsy is bacterial disease that can be caused by various things. I would just like to mention that keeping bettas in a community tank isn't usually recommended for many reasons (check over on the Betta forum for more info) and if a fish isn't happy with their tankmates they can become stressed - and stress lowers their immune system which in turn leads to disease.

It's not just incompatible tankmates but the whole tank environment/water quality/type of food that can stress a fish. So it's important to ensure all those things are correct and that there is nothing within the tank environment to cause stress. Have you noticed any bullying, aggression, persistent chasing/fin nipping etc going on?

I notice you said that your water stats were all good - what type of testing kit did you use?

Some people recommend isolating a fish that has dropsy - not particularly to prevent it spreading but just to lower the stress levels all round. As you may have noticed, a sick fish is often picked on and attacked by healthy fish. They may feel threatened and want to hide away. The more stressed they are the harder it becomes to treat the disease.

Regards - Athena

Thanks for the reply.

I used an API test kit.

When i added a couple of new bettas to my sorority recently, there were a couple days of fin nipping among them, but they've sorted that out and everyone seems to be at peace. The possibly ill betta is not being picked on. I did confer with the betta folks before adding the female bettas to my tank. Consensus was that there shouldn't be any problems. Besides the initial squabbling among the bettas themselves, i haven't noticed any problems with other tank mates.

As for food, i feed a variety of food: flake food, spectrum pellets (recommended by my lfs as being the best food available), blood worms, haikari betta pellets, and sinking wafers (intended for the cories), although they don't get all the different food types everyday. I usually fast them about once per week.