Oscar with dropsy

"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