Howdy, i had to comment when i saw the dropsy thread cause i just a really bad bout with dropsy on one of my fantail goldfish.

I have had dropsy on orandas before and it was always fatal. i used to not know what to do. i would try things here and there but it was always to no avail. then i did some reasearch and found something, tried it and it really worked!!! Dropsy is a real #$*#* too.

Anyway, i pulled Tubs (the fantail) out and put him in a 10 gallon hospital tank with lots of airation ( 2 airstones on seperate dedicated lines). before i put tubs in there, i raised the temperature to 86 degrees ( i know it seems high but theres a reason) and put a 1/4 teaspoon of epsons salt in there. ( the ratio is 1/8 teaspoon for 5 gallons). Dont under any cercumstance use regualar salt or aquarium salt cause it will cause the gold fish to retain even more water and die quickly. Epson's salt drawls out the water releavign some of the presure on the organs of the oranda or goldfish your treating.

Next i put tubs in the 86 degree water with no adaptation period. The reason why is the shock in water temperature kills alot of the bacteria right away. And alot of the bacteria cant live past 82 anyway. So with Tubs in the hospital tank at 86 degrees and 1/4 teaspoon of epsons salt in there, i added a dose of Melafix and Pimafix.

In about 20 hours, his swelling had allready gone down 40 percent!!! The epsons salts really worked and the high temperature didnt bother him at all ( once again, i had a lot of airration!) Side note: He was REALLY pineconed out alot with a 3/4 inch long ulcer that was red and sore on his stomach too. At the next day , he was doing better, i made sure to feed him sparingly that day 2 times. the swelling went down even more and he was doing better. At the 2nd day, i did a 100 percent water change and added the epsons salt and Melafix and Pimafix and put tubs back in there (of course its stilll 85 degree water)
I contintued this for a week and ALL the dropsy went away and the ulcer even healed up too! i thought it wasnt possible to heal him cause of all the bad advise that i had taken before, but with this set up and a lot of prayer to Jesus, Tubs is happy as ever! feel free to email me if you had any questions. id be happy to help! You dont need antibotics or anythign like that, just some epsons salt and Melafix and Pima fix!

Dropsy is an internal infection. Try giving fish medicated fish food with metronidazole. If they wont eat, try fish metronidazole or kanaplex in the water.

My fish had fish pox.i didn't know what he had!!!i'm still sad that poor little guy had to sufer....i still miss him....

I've been fighting this with one of my big blue orandas...stinks that one of the treatment options is euthanizing it. The swelling has gone down...at one point it got so bad the scales on both sides were sticking out so much the fish looked more like a pine comb. After a couple of weeks of medicated food, life guard and blue drops the fish looks better and the scales have gotten better, but I can still tell something is wrong with the fish...guess she'll be living alone for now

-sigh- my betta died of dropsy... poor guy... i hadn't even known what it was...