My betta has dropsy, what do i do?

Question

This is the beggining part of the disease, not advanced.

Answer 1

I'm so sorry... But dropsy is almost always fatal. You can treat it with a store bought medication, but those can be expensive and most likely will not help. Dropsy itself is not a disease, but a symptom of one. Your fish has organ failure that is causing the swelling and "pineconing" of dropsy. It is nearly impossible to determine the underlying cause and even if you do, its probably too late. Its possible that your fishes organs are already struggling so much that you will speed its death by treating it because its kidneys will not be able to handle to the medicine. Once dropsy sets in, the best thing you can do is just make your fish comfortable for its remaining time. Keep the tank clean and at 78 degrees. You can add aquarium salt (specifically aquarium salt because other salts are unstable and your fish is VERY sick). Follow the directions on the package for your tank size and for the betta fish.
Visit the Dropsy Page at Nippyfish.net
http://www.nippyfish.net/dropsy.html
(awesome site for betta care)

Best of luck, and do all you can for your little guy even if you don't think he'll make it..

Answer 2

dropsy is not a disease, it is a symptom. it is also not a beginning stage.

dropsy is essentially fluid build up/swelling in the body tissues. it's just like edema in humans. dropsy is caused by kidney failure. when the kidneys fail they are no longer able to maintain the salt/water balance in the body. because they kidneys can no longer excrete the water from the body properly, it begins to leak into body tissue. there is no cure for organ failure in people (except transplant i guess) and there is no cure for it in fish. and i highly doubt anyone will ever develop a dialysis machine for fish.

kidney failure and dropsy may or may not have a visible cause. if it was a bacterial infection, it might have presented as something as small as listlessness, not eating, or clamping fins often... or there might not have been any signs. if there were any early signs of bacterial infection, you might have been able to treat then, before the kidneys started to fail.

i'm sorry. i wish i had something better to tell you, because i know how much it sucks. i've lost two to dropsy in the past five years. just try to make him comfortable. (i lower the water level when the fish begins to have trouble swimming so they can reach the surface more easily to get air.) thats all you can really do.

Answer 3

Dropsy is when your fish swells up and the eyes start to pop out. This is down to water retention because of kidney failure and the prognosis is not good. Some fish with dropsy recover on their own but most die eventually. You can buy an internal bacterial treatment from most aquatic stores that does sometimes work. Get one of these treatment and treat the whole tank as is may be a contagious disease and you do not want it to spread to the other fish. Apart from that keep your tank clean with regular partial water changes and clean the filter regulary. make sure the water quality is right with a test kit ( PH,ammonia and nitrates). Care sheets are available on my web site.

Answer 4

Bionoxx, is a great medicine to give your fish, when they are sick. It'll change the color of your water to like a yellowish green. You leave this stuff in the tank for a week and then change the water. You should see and improvement in him before the week is over.

Answer 5

Not much but hope for the best and plan on buying another betta. Sorry!

Answer 6

well i dont know aton about betas but i would say check your pet store for some kind of drops or tablets.

Answer 7

i am sorry he will die