my fish looks bloated and its scales are raised up! Whats wrong with them?

Question

It seems to be behaving normally but it is about twice the size as normal and so looks really swollen. Its eyes are also bulging! Does anyone know what could be wrong and what I can do. It has been like this for about 48 hours. Thanks

Answer 1

Sounds like Dropsy to me.

Answer 2

This condition is called dropsy, but rather than being a "disease" itself, it's a symptom of any of a number of things which can affect the kidney function. What's happened is that the fish is having trouble expelling excess water because the kidneys aren't working, so the fish is swelling up with excess water.

Some potential causes are poor water quality, overmedicating/overdoing some chemical added to the tank, bacterial infection, tumor, and quite a few others.

I would suggest starting with a 1/3 partial water change (with gravel cleaning) to see if this helps (more if you've been using anything other than dechlorinator to reduce the concentration). Add 1/8 teaspoon of Epsom salt to some of the replacement water until it's dissolved and add this to the tank (a diuretic to help expel excess water). If you don;t see an improvement within a day, try a broad-spectrum antibiotic that says it can be used for treatment of dropsy. I've used the Mardel and Jungle product lines for this with some success, but there are causes of dropsy (tumor, advanced kidney disease) which can't be treated.

While the only responsible thing to do is to treat the fish and do everything you can to help it survive, please be advised that dropsy has a high mortality rate. Good luck!

Answer 3

Hey there,
My friend Rose was about 50 when she first came upon a new natural kidney healing program. Her life had been devastated, literally ruined with stage 4 kidney disease. She had no life, no job because she was too sick to work, not enough energy to see her friends and sat around most of the time watching TV. She basically was waiting around for kidney failure and to start dialysis. She is much better now. She followed a natural method with great results. Visit this site if you want to know more http://kidneydisease.toptips.org
Cheers.

Answer 4

Textbook dropsy. You can check your local pet store for a remedy, but usualy the best treatment is to better your water quality. Clean water makes for a healthy fish.

Answer 5

It's called dropsy. There really isn't much you can do to fix this, but you can stop it from happening again. You need to change water regularly( not more than half) and make sure your chemicals are in balance. Their are aquarium test kits that can help a lot with this.

Answer 6

That is very bad. I forgot what the disiese is called but I think it has something to do with a kidney problem. Im sorry I can't be much of a help, search wikipedia.

Answer 7

Its dropsy by the sound of this. You can try and cure this by chemical treatment. But its more than likely not going to survive this if its far gone.

Answer 8

my silver molly had this i treated it with interpet 9 but it died after a few days, it is also highly contagious so make sure you treat the others. Once i knew what to look for interpet 9 savd another fish so it does work.

Answer 9

This is called dropsy. I am sorry but there isn't really a cure for this. Their are some chances he/she may get better. Good luck.

Hope this helped.

Answer 10

I would also agree with dropsy. Please see my suggestions that I gave to another person who recently had this problem: http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=Aqdqv95WJcQDobncqC_pfUzty6IX?qid=20070625112530AAHp41s&show=7#profile-info-mo6QleYVaa

Although it's said imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, I would appreciate users not copying my previous answers and posting them as their own.