"Mark Stone" wrote in message
om...
"RedForeman ©®" wrote in message
...

1, Dropsy is a result of poor water conditions, mostly overfed, under
maintained, and even incorrect housing of said fish, ie, big fish,
small
tank.
2, Dropsy is usually, fatal, irreversable, and usually, near
impossible to
repair.
3, If caught early, medicated food, is said to be the only fix, as
it's an
internal problem, not an external problem. Anti-bac, fungal, etc,
won't
help at all, because the problem exists inside the fish, and the only
way to
get medications to the fish is if the fish eats the medicine, which
you can
now see, is why it's so hard to fix dropsy. you can't just feed them
a
pill, the medicated food is best, and they usually don't like to eat
if they
are sick..
4, they usually don't make it..

RedForeman and Netmax are both correct, but I'm going to take it a
step further: The term "dropsy" as used in aquaria can refer to any
number of internal ailments that cause swelling of internal organs,
and it's not a reference to a specific disease and therefore has no
specific cure -- except, of course, prevention. The bad news is that I
have never seen an aquarium fish that has gotten this ill survive
long. Once a disease has manifested this far, causing the extreme
swelling of internal organs, there's nothing that can be done. Since
the Oscar in question is still acting normally and eating, I'm glad
that he's feeling no apparent discomfort. But I don't give him long.
--Mark

Not to quibble with my esteemed and learned colleagues ;~), but Dropsy
symptoms are also documented to occur under ideal conditions. There is
some randomness to dropsy, which is as Mark points out, a general
umbrella term. For example, there is a type of fish tuberculosis which
falls under Dropsy. A large amount of the disease organism can be
present long before any symptoms appear, so a healthy fish can be a time
bomb for years (and unlike human tuberculosis, fish tuberculosis does not
respond to antibiotics).

My own experience supports the randomness of Dropsy, mortality occurring
to one out of several hundred under identical conditions, though
Cyprinidae (esp. danios & goldfish) and Anabantidae (esp. Bettas &
Gouramis) seem more likely to get it, and when cichlids get it, they tend
to be older. Probably more info than most ppl wanted to know though ;~).
--
www.NetMax.tk (who really hates fish diseases)