Help! Ill Danios!

[HarPstAr]

I have 4 danios (I dont know what species they are)

They are large and silver with a blueish pattern on the side.

Three have suddenly bacame very very fat and scales protruding off of it.

I recgonized this a a sign of dropsy straight when the first two fish became like it and put them down.

I went on holiday and came back and the person looking after them had said over the last two or three days it had got really fat, and now it looks the same as the others.

I didnt think dropsy could spread, and it just seems a conisidence all of my other fish are fine and that 1 isnt, and its condition is identical from the last one.

Could this be an egg problem? Or is it just dropsy?

Any help would really be appreciaited.

Thanks.

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

Hi and welcome to the forum .
If the scales are pine-coning/sticking out, its most likely dropsy.
The two main causes of dropsy is constipation from over-feeding dried or high protein foods, or internal bacterial infection. The belief that dropsy is uncurable is not true, its simply a difficult illness to treat.
Can you give us more info on your situation like how many gallons the tank is, what and how many fish you have in it and how do you go about cleaning the tank and how often etc?

 

[HarPstAr]

Thanks =)

Its only a small community tank of 45l

I have
2 Of the danios mentioned left
1 Red tailed black shark
2 Zebra's
1 Leapord
1 Black Widow
2 Albino Corydoras
1 Sucking Loach
1 Lace Gourami (I plan to add another as one has recently died of age, had it 3 years)

I have been treating the tank with myaxin anyway as there was a small infection with my black widows mouth but it doesnt seem to have changed at all and the bottle ran out so i have stopped treating it as i thought 2 weeks would have been enough.

I unblock the filter once every two weeks so it runs smooth but i clean the media 1ce a month when i change 1/3 of my water (when i change my water i treat it with an anti cholrine/aloe vera treatment)

I feed them 1ce a day with a decent pinch of Aquarian Tropcial Food and a smallish pinch of catfish pellets.

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

Thanks =)

Its only a small community tank of 45l

I have
2 Of the danios mentioned left
1 Red tailed black shark
2 Zebra's
1 Leapord
1 Black Widow
2 Albino Corydoras
1 Sucking Loach
1 Lace Gourami (I plan to add another as one has recently died of age, had it 3 years)

I have been treating the tank with myaxin anyway as there was a small infection with my black widows mouth but it doesnt seem to have changed at all and the bottle ran out so i have stopped treating it as i thought 2 weeks would have been enough.

I unblock the filter once every two weeks so it runs smooth but i clean the media 1ce a month when i change 1/3 of my water (when i change my water i treat it with an anti cholrine/aloe vera treatment)

I feed them 1ce a day with a decent pinch of Aquarian Tropcial Food and a smallish pinch of catfish pellets.

Stress can make fish much more prone to desease, unfortunately you have some issues in your tank stocking that you need to sort out. The tank is only about 6-8gallons, so the red tail black shark, lace gourami and danio's are unsuitable for it (danio's may be small, but they are too active for such a confined space and it will be stressing them out, RTBS and lace gouramis are too big for an 8 gallon tank). Pretty much all fish are unsuitabel for it in one way or another because of the small size, these are the priority fish to deal with though.
The sucking loach could also be a problem, it is most likely a chinese algae eater as this is one of the names they are often sold under, which grow into 10inch+ long territorial fish.

Upgrading the tank to a 30gallon would be very bennificial for every fish you have involved and improve their quality of living and health by miles .
As for the dropsy problem, do more regular water changes with dechlorinator (do at least a 30% water change once a week) and try and feed the fish a more veg based diet (TetraPro vegetable flakes will be taken by all fish you have) and treat the danio's with an anti internal bacterial med like "Anti internal bcteria" by Interpet .
If you upgrade the tank to a 30gal+ (which i strongly advise), i would advise getting 5 more black tetra's as these are schooling fish that do best in groups of 6+ and get at least 3 more leopard or zebra danios (these are actually the same type of danio, they are just two different color variations of it) for the same reasons. Cories also do best in groups of 3-4+ of their own type.

If you have a digital camera, you can post pics up your unknown danio's to get an accurate ID on them, otherwise we will just have to work on description . Do the unknown type danio's look anything like these (they look more silver in life, just have a pearl like blue or pink shinyness to them);

http/www.fishforums.net/index.php?showtopic=42795

?

 

[HarPstAr]

Thanks, will go and buy food+treatment tomorrow as its 6 nearly now.

What is the best way of putting fish from one established tank to a new tank?

 

[Lynden]

Thanks, will go and buy food+treatment tomorrow as its 6 nearly now.

What is the best way of putting fish from one established tank to a new tank?

By "cloning" the tank.

Take the filter media and some gravel from the old tank, and put it into the new tank. It would also be helpful (just to keep the same water conditions) to take a large amount of water from the old tank and put it into the new one.

Begin adding the fishes to the new tank, and keep an eye on ammonia and nitrite over the next few days.

-Lynden

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

Thanks, will go and buy food+treatment tomorrow as its 6 nearly now.

What is the best way of putting fish from one established tank to a new tank?

If you are moving all of your fish to a larger tank, simply set up your old filter in the new tank (after the water has been treated with dechlorinator, try and use as much of the old tank water as posible too) alongside its new filter and add the fish ASAP to the tank once both filters are runnning.
This way you are simply transferring your established and mature filter to the new tank, having both new and old filter running together in the same tank will give the new filter a head start as well as instantly prepare the tank for your fish to move into .