Possible Platy Dropsy ;(

[acid2000]

Hi i've been lerking here for a while and now have the unfortunate task of posting in the fish emergencies forum.

A few days ago I bought a platy from a local pet shop, he looked fine at the time but this morning I noticed a red bump on its side which I believe is dropsy.

I'm lucky enough never to have met a fish disease before as I buy from nice looking tanks and keep mine clean.

What can I do for my platy, I would like to add salt to my tank but i'm worried this would halm my dwarf frog. I have no second tank. I've been told platys suffer from dropsy due to overfeeding, if I didn't feed him for a few days would this help?

 

[The-Wolf]

A description of Dropsy
dropsy or 'pine-cone disease' the fish's body often swells up, the eyes may start to bulge out (exophthalmia) and some or all of the scales may stand out from the body, giving the appearance of a pine-cone, hence the common name. This is an extremely serious condition having many possible causes. It is important to understand that it is merely a clinical description of the condition: there is no actual disease called ‘dropsy'. Dropsy could indicate a contagious infection so it makes sense to isolate any affected fish.

Lumps and bumps
If a fish has any unusual lumps try to determine whether they appear either over or under the skin. Often it is easy to decide but there are some skin conditions which result in very large tumours, where there tends to be very little distortion of the surrounding, unaffected, tissues. Deep-seated (below the skin) lumps tend to distort and distend a larger area of seemingly healthy tissue.

Both of these descriptions were taken from www.fishdoc.co.uk

 

[acid2000]

Can I safely increase the salt content/use medication containing nifurpirinol without harming frog?

I'm thinking of doing daily water changes and varying the salt content between them. I understand this is one of the best ways to remove bacteria from the water, am I along the right lines and will it harm my frog?

 

[black angel]

i dont think adding salt will make any difference im afraid. do you have a test kit? you could try posting the results of that. is the lump keeping his scales flat to the body? is there any change in the colour of it.

 

[acid2000]

I'll do a test later when I get home from work.

I haven't noticed the lump before this morning his scales are definatly raised

 

[black angel]

ok. when you get home the fish may have gotten worse. if it is dropsy then you can treat with an anti internal bacteria treatment such as aquarium treatment 9 . it will be toxic to the frog so can you move him somewhere else for the duration of the meds?

 

[KittenAndHerFish]

What else is in your tank besides this frog?

I would remove the platy, not the frog and treat it. Salt is good when medicating it helps the fish absorb more of the meds.

Platies seem to be pretty hardy I just had one that was sick for a week and now is back to being perfectly normal.

What other symptoms is he having?

Something like dropsy is hard to cure because honestly it isn't a signle disease. Dropsy is just a description of the "scale raised" symptom. The best thing to do if it looks like dropsy is to treat the infected fish with a broad spectrum anti-biotic, but if one doesn't work that doesn't mean it is incurable. See quote from (http/www.fishpondinfo.com/health2.htm)

"Bacteria
There are many gram-negative (-) and gram-positive bacteria (+). Each type of bacteria responds differently to various antibiotics so it may take a number of tries to find the antibiotic to treat the bacteria. Some common antibiotics are erythromycin (+), minocycline (-), tetracycline (+), penicillin, and sulfonamides (sodium sulfathiazole, sodium sulfamethazine, sodium sulfacetamide, etc.). Care must be taken when adding antibiotics to tanks as they also may kill the biological filter. Then, ammonia and/or nitrite could quickly build to deadly levels. Thus, the "medicine" kills the fish. In my tanks, penicillin killed off the good bacteria and my fish while erythromycin and minocycline did not have a harmful effect (they did kill off blue-green algae but did not seem to help with my TB outbreak as shown below).

Dropsy is a common internal bacterial infection where the fish is enlarged, and the scales stick out from the body."

I just had to treat my tank with "minocycline" and it saved several of my fish. This is generally the medicine you will find labeled as "dropsy" medicine. But like this said, it amy not work and you may need to try something like the tetracycline (whic kills different kinds of bacteria.) Also I found the pills to be under dosed and I believe that is why most of the time people don't save their fish. So make sure you do some research on the proper dose/gallon of the meds you decide to use. The kind I bought said two tabs per ten gallons which would have been 2mg of meds per gallon, it was way under dosed. I dosed my betta with dropsy at 10mg/gallon and he is better than ever now.

Good Luck.
Do some good research and follow your gut instinct.

Kitten

 

[acid2000]

I've given the platy a salt bath and performed a water change. The lump seems to have become less red but that might just be me hoping.

I'll see how he feels tomorrow and either perform another salt bath or get some medicine. He seems happier and is eating food.

I've turned the temperature up to 80 as I've heard this would help, will keep you updated.

 

[acid2000]

Unfortunatly he died just now after going into some kind of spasm . Very difficult to watch. His death was hopefully not very paintful, it seemed quite quick.

Should I know go out and buy medication to use on the whole of the tank, including the frog or should I use daily water changes?

 

[Angry_Platy]

I wouldn't medicate the tank....it can create other problems later...like when they are sick they will be resistant to the medication...

Water changes wouldn't hurt....

Sorry to hear about your platy....I lost 2 this week as well....and cried.....