How much epsom salt to combat dropsy?

Hi:
About 2 weeks ago I wrote a post about one of my favorite
goldfish, who had lots of problems, including an eye that was
completely clouded over.
Doing daily water changes and adding aquariium salt and melafix
seemed to help a lot, and up till today she seemed to be doing very
well. Good apetite, not hiding, red spots cleared up, and eye back to
normal.
This morning she has blown up like a balloon, and her scales are
pineconing.
This all has happened since yesterday.

I've done some reading, and it appears to be dropsy in its
full-blown final stages. Most of what I read offers little hope that
she will survive, but I'm going to try.

All the water parameters are good: ammonia and nitrite are zero
and nitrate is 10-20. PH is about 7.4 to 7.6. Water temp is 72-74 F.

I'm going out to get some rommet B food as soon as I post this.

Here's my question (finally). I've read that epson salt should be
used to try to help reduce the internal fluid buildup.

What ratio should I use?

"Goldie" still seems perky and swims OK, and she ate ok this
morning, but she looks like a blimp. This happened _fast_!

Any other suggestions?

PS: years ago I worked in a group home, which had a communal fish
tank. One day the fish died, and I was assigned the job of cleaning
everything up and putting the tank away. A week or so later I got a
terrible infection in one of my fingers. Over the next 2 months it
spred up my hand and arm. Several doctors could not diagnose it, and
numerous antibiotics were tried. Nothing worked. Finallly I was sent
to a specialist who diagnosed it as some type of mycobacterium. (sp?)
I don't remember the name of the med he gave me, but it cleared
everything up in about 2-3 weeks. I do remember that it was TERRIBLY
expensive. The specialist said that this bug was quite rare in
humans. I think I must have gotten it from cleaning the tank, but
I'll never know for sure.
However, ever since then I have tested positive for TB. I'm told
that this bacteria is some form of TB, although I have no symptoms of
TB.
Could this bacteria still be in my system, and could it have
somehow got passed into my fish tank? (I never wear gloves but maybe
I'lll have too from now on.)

Dave123

here is the treatment for dropsy pioneered by Jo Ann, the Goldfish
Guru
http://weloveteaching.com/puregold/d...ame.htm#dropsy

basically it is: shove temp up to 86oF, add 1/8 teaspoon of Epsom
salts per 5 gallons and NO regular salt.
feed antibiotic food like romet or with oxolinic acid

I have heard of humans getting fish mycobacterium. but in humans it
is a cutaneous form of TB. I dont think you have it anymore, just the
antibody. dropsy is caused by lots and lots of different things.
dropsy is a loss of regulation of electrolytes, sorta like edema in
humans. heat is the most important part of treating it in fish.
Ingrid

On Wed, 05 Sep 2007 13:38:47 -0400, wrote:

Hi:
About 2 weeks ago I wrote a post about one of my favorite
goldfish, who had lots of problems, including an eye that was
completely clouded over.
Doing daily water changes and adding aquariium salt and melafix
seemed to help a lot, and up till today she seemed to be doing very
well. Good apetite, not hiding, red spots cleared up, and eye back to
normal.
This morning she has blown up like a balloon, and her scales are
pineconing.
This all has happened since yesterday.

I've done some reading, and it appears to be dropsy in its
full-blown final stages. Most of what I read offers little hope that
she will survive, but I'm going to try.

All the water parameters are good: ammonia and nitrite are zero
and nitrate is 10-20. PH is about 7.4 to 7.6. Water temp is 72-74 F.

I'm going out to get some rommet B food as soon as I post this.

Here's my question (finally). I've read that epson salt should be
used to try to help reduce the internal fluid buildup.

What ratio should I use?

"Goldie" still seems perky and swims OK, and she ate ok this
morning, but she looks like a blimp. This happened _fast_!

Any other suggestions?

PS: years ago I worked in a group home, which had a communal fish
tank. One day the fish died, and I was assigned the job of cleaning
everything up and putting the tank away. A week or so later I got a
terrible infection in one of my fingers. Over the next 2 months it
spred up my hand and arm. Several doctors could not diagnose it, and
numerous antibiotics were tried. Nothing worked. Finallly I was sent
to a specialist who diagnosed it as some type of mycobacterium. (sp?)
I don't remember the name of the med he gave me, but it cleared
everything up in about 2-3 weeks. I do remember that it was TERRIBLY
expensive. The specialist said that this bug was quite rare in
humans. I think I must have gotten it from cleaning the tank, but
I'll never know for sure.
However, ever since then I have tested positive for TB. I'm told
that this bacteria is some form of TB, although I have no symptoms of
TB.
Could this bacteria still be in my system, and could it have
somehow got passed into my fish tank? (I never wear gloves but maybe
I'lll have too from now on.)

Dave123

On Thu, 06 Sep 2007 07:39:55 -0500, wrote:

here is the treatment for dropsy pioneered by Jo Ann, the Goldfish
Guru
http://weloveteaching.com/puregold/d...ame.htm#dropsy

basically it is: shove temp up to 86oF, add 1/8 teaspoon of Epsom
salts per 5 gallons and NO regular salt.
feed antibiotic food like romet or with oxolinic acid

I have heard of humans getting fish mycobacterium. but in humans it
is a cutaneous form of TB. I dont think you have it anymore, just the
antibody. dropsy is caused by lots and lots of different things.
dropsy is a loss of regulation of electrolytes, sorta like edema in
humans. heat is the most important part of treating it in fish.
Ingrid


(snip my original post)


Hi Dr. Solo,

Thank you for your continuing responses & help over the past
couple weeks.
I have 3 more questions:

1. When using epson salt, do I dose the tank once, or keep
adding a new dose every day? I would assume that just one dose of the
proper strength is needed.

2. Will the epsom salt hurt my other goldfish, which shows no
signs of any problems? I only have one tank. Do I need to get
another one and separate the 2 fish? They are real "close" and I
think they would be stressed to be separated. Once when I put a
partition in the tank both struggled like crazy to get to each other
past the partition.

3. Finally, where in the world can I get romet B? I spent five
hours yesterday in a nearby large city visiting 6 fish shops and
none of them had romet, and even claimed to have neever heard of it.

Thanks again,

Dave123

On Sep 6, 12:42 pm, wrote:
On Thu, 06 Sep 2007 07:39:55 -0500, wrote:
here is the treatment for dropsy pioneered by Jo Ann, the Goldfish
Guru
http://weloveteaching.com/puregold/d...ame.htm#dropsy

basically it is: shove temp up to 86oF, add 1/8 teaspoon of Epsom
salts per 5 gallons and NO regular salt.
feed antibiotic food like romet or with oxolinic acid

I have heard of humans getting fish mycobacterium. but in humans it
is a cutaneous form of TB. I dont think you have it anymore, just the
antibody. dropsy is caused by lots and lots of different things.
dropsy is a loss of regulation of electrolytes, sorta like edema in
humans. heat is the most important part of treating it in fish.
Ingrid

(snip my original post)

Hi Dr. Solo,

Thank you for your continuing responses & help over the past
couple weeks.
I have 3 more questions:

1. When using epson salt, do I dose the tank once, or keep
adding a new dose every day? I would assume that just one dose of the
proper strength is needed.

2. Will the epsom salt hurt my other goldfish, which shows no
signs of any problems? I only have one tank. Do I need to get
another one and separate the 2 fish? They are real "close" and I
think they would be stressed to be separated. Once when I put a
partition in the tank both struggled like crazy to get to each other
past the partition.

3. Finally, where in the world can I get romet B? I spent five
hours yesterday in a nearby large city visiting 6 fish shops and
none of them had romet, and even claimed to have neever heard of it.

Thanks again,

Dave123- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

yea, go b y a 90 gal for the healthy one, and a zip lock bag for the
loser. DUH..you are a nut case Dave..............Liostening to those
LFS and romet is like listening to that lesbo Dr. Solo.are you a gay
guy perhaps dave, is that why you like Ingrid so much.your two closet
queers?

On Sep 6, 12:42 pm, wrote:
On Thu, 06 Sep 2007 07:39:55 -0500, wrote:
here is the treatment for dropsy pioneered by Jo Ann, the Goldfish
Guru
http://weloveteaching.com/puregold/d...ame.htm#dropsy

basically it is: shove temp up to 86oF, add 1/8 teaspoon of Epsom
salts per 5 gallons and NO regular salt.
feed antibiotic food like romet or with oxolinic acid

I have heard of humans getting fish mycobacterium. but in humans it
is a cutaneous form of TB. I dont think you have it anymore, just the
antibody. dropsy is caused by lots and lots of different things.
dropsy is a loss of regulation of electrolytes, sorta like edema in
humans. heat is the most important part of treating it in fish.
Ingrid

(snip my original post)

Hi Dr. Solo,

Thank you for your continuing responses & help over the past
couple weeks.
I have 3 more questions:

1. When using epson salt, do I dose the tank once, or keep
adding a new dose every day? I would assume that just one dose of the
proper strength is needed.

2. Will the epsom salt hurt my other goldfish, which shows no
signs of any problems? I only have one tank. Do I need to get
another one and separate the 2 fish? They are real "close" and I
think they would be stressed to be separated. Once when I put a
partition in the tank both struggled like crazy to get to each other
past the partition.

3. Finally, where in the world can I get romet B? I spent five
hours yesterday in a nearby large city visiting 6 fish shops and
none of them had romet, and even claimed to have neever heard of it.

Thanks again,

Dave123- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Sounds like the real close fish were probably queer goldies....just
like you dave..........

dose it once, then add more when adding more water. dont worry about
overdosing when adding 1/8 teaspoon per dose.

no, Epsom salts is mild. dont move anybody out and stress teh
dropsied fish at this point.

Antibiotics in food
The food I use is Romet B. However, antibiotic food can be made by
either soaking sinking pellets in antibiotic laced water, by mixing
antibiotics into cooled gelatin, or by coating the food and rolling
the food in oil to keep the antibiotics on the food in the water.
TMP-4 and oxolinic acid are two good antibiotics to add to food.
Erythromycin is used when staph or strep (gram positive bacteria) is
suspected. Almost all pathogenic bacteria are resistant to
Tetracycline.
Fishy Fharmacy 1-800-423-2035
you can get kanamycin or something like that in pet stores.

google for Dandy Orandas and see if the guy has antibiotic food of
some kind.

the heat is the most important part of the treatment. but do finally
get the antibiotic food and keep in frozen.

romet B is used on catfish farms. Ingrid

On Thu, 06 Sep 2007 13:42:18 -0400, wrote:


1. When using epson salt, do I dose the tank once, or keep
adding a new dose every day? I would assume that just one dose of the
proper strength is needed.

2. Will the epsom salt hurt my other goldfish, which shows no
signs of any problems? I only have one tank. Do I need to get
another one and separate the 2 fish? They are real "close" and I
think they would be stressed to be separated. Once when I put a
partition in the tank both struggled like crazy to get to each other
past the partition.

3. Finally, where in the world can I get romet B? I spent five
hours yesterday in a nearby large city visiting 6 fish shops and
none of them had romet, and even claimed to have neever heard of it.

Thanks again,

Dave123

wrote in message
...
3. Finally, where in the world can I get romet B? I spent five
hours yesterday in a nearby large city visiting 6 fish shops and
none of them had romet, and even claimed to have neever heard of it.



Allow me to suggest you save your money as most of these easily bought (no
prescription) medications no longer work. The bacteria are immune to them
due to overuse. I've had goldfish for many years and none ever survived
dropsy.
--
RM....
My Pond & Aquarium Pages:
http://tinyurl.com/9do58
Zone 6. Middle TN USA
~~~~ }((((* ~~~ }{{{{(ö