Swollen Red Line Torpedo Barb

Hi,
just after some advice on my RLTB. He seems to be extremely swollen and getting bigger by the day, his tummy has also changed colour and is getting a reddish tinge to it . There is a clear line of where his head is and his swollen body starts , it had been suggested he may be pregnant but the swelling is all around his body not just his tummy (plus ive read its near impossible to breed these).
He is eating fine but haven't fed them since weds just in case. Its quite hard to get any decent info on these but have found something which sounds quite scarily like whats happening- Dropsy. What is this and how do i treat it? I dont have a hospital tank nor can i afford to get one!
I have a noble gourami, dwarf gourami, neon tetras, black widow tetras, bristle nose plecos x 3, red fin shark, in total 4 RLTB. None of the other fish have any symptoms.
 
As i say hes getting bigger by the day, (yesterdays pic  and you can see his scales protruding, hes getting around the tank fine and is perfectly happy chasing the smaller RLTB. When they were first introduced to the tank about 2 months ago the shark was not a happy fishy and did chase them but this hasnt been the case for a few weeks. 
You might notice he is larger than the others but this is because we got him a few weeks before the others so has always been bigger.
 
Im really gutted and any suggestions would be brilliant!!!
 
 
Thanks in advance 

Hi Lisa; sorry you haven't had a reply yet.
 
It does sound like dropsy; unfortunately dropsy is a symptom (a bit like 'stomach ache' in humans) rather than a disease in itself. It's hard to know what treatment might work, as we don't know what's causing the dropsy.
 
Can you give us some more details on your tank? How big is it, how long has been set up, is it cycled and have you tested the water at all (and, if so, what were the numbers)?

It doesn't just sound like dropsy, it looks like it too, I'm afraid. Sad to say, once your fish is this ill, it's almost certainly too late to help it. In all the cases of dropsy that I've seen in this forum, I can only remember one that survived. Certainly, when one of my fish became swollen like that, it was fatal.

Sorry to hear this news but alas if it has been awhile you will probably loose the fish as Dropsy is very difficult to treat.  There is a medication in the UK but I cannot recall its name at present if you search the forum for dropsy you will probably come across it as I have mentioned it before.  You do need to act quickly though for it to be effective.  As you do not have a quarantine tank I would recommend you place the fish in a food grade container floating in the tank and treat it in there.  The thing is though you need to change the water regularly or the toxins in the container can build up.  Make sure you do not contaminate the water in the aquarium and add water from the aquarium to the container.  I find a turkey baster brilliant for these jobs, as you can easily remove the majority of the water, discard it, then top it up with minimum disturbance to the fish.
 
Can you add your location into your profile as it assists with guiding you according to different countries etc.

I have found the topic with the medication I mentioned, HERE.

Sadly, if you can not afford an H tank you also probably can not afford the meds that might help. One advantage of an H tank is it is smaller than the main tank, This means it requires less of any med to reach an effective dose. Meds are not cheap. So what you might save by not spending for and H tank you will likely spend buying the larger doses of the medication needed to treat a larger space. Moreover, some meds will harm the nitrifying bacteria, In an uncycled H tank, this is never an issue.
 
All that said this may help:

Dropsy
    Symptoms: Bloating of the body, protruding scales.
   
Dropsy is caused from a bacterial infection of the kidneys, causing fluid accumulation or renal failure. The fluids in the body build up and cause the fish to bloat up and the scales to protrude. It appears to only cause trouble in weakened fish and possibly from unkempt aquarium conditions.
 
An effective treatment is to add an antibiotic to the food. With flake food, use about 1% of antibiotic and carefully mix it in. If you keep the fish hungry they should eagerly eat the mixture before the antibiotic dissipates. Antibiotics usually come in 250 mg capsules. If added to 25 grams of flake food, one capsule should be enough to treat dozens of fish. A good antibiotic is chloromycetin (chloramphenicol). Or use tetracycline. If you feed your fish frozen foods or chopped foods, try to use the same ratio with mixing. As a last resort add at most 10 mg per liter of water. Also, if unkempt conditions are the suspected cause, correct it.

Click to expand...

from http/animal-world.com/encyclo/fresh/information/Diseases.htm#Dropsy
 
If the fish doesn't suffer from the above, then the next probable problem would be from constipation. This is sometimes helped by the addition of Epsom salt to the water. A constipated fish stops pooping and then stops eating. One needs to use some care with Epsom as it will raise GH (hardness and TDS). Fish can have trouble adapting to rapid changes. So Epsom should be administered in several smaller dose over time. You can try adding one tablespoon for every 10 gals. of water initially and then repeat this dose after about 12 and 24 hours to reach the max dose. To add the Epsom dose, remove a big cup of water from the tank, mix the Epsom into it and then pour it into the tank gradually. If there are undissolved crystals, don't pour them in, add more tank water and mix and pour that in. Again, in a main tank all fish are subject to this increase in hardness, but in an H tank not so.
 
All you need to make an H tank is a heater, a sponge filter or airstone, an air pump and a container. Even a few gallon Rubbermaid would work.You can use your regular tank thermometer to check the temp. Remember to clean it real well using a bit of bleach solution or strong sw dip. Rinse very well before returning it to the main tank. This avoids moving germs back to the main tank.
 
Good luck with it, they are very pretty fish.

Thanks everyone for the advice, a fired agreed to borrow a H tank to us, unfortunately the stress of the move did it. he died before we could get him out f the tank. At least we know now what to look out for and how to treat hem for this.
 
Thanks again everyone!

Sorry for your loss, Lisa