Dropsy Why?

[chrisquinn12]

The tank is about 1 month old. The first one I lost was a preg female. An original from my small tank. Then I bought 2 more sailfin mollies. Male and female. About 2 days later the male got dropsy??? I put him down today...

All the rest seem fine...I'm sure my water is ok. I only test for ph and ammonium as these are the only kits I have but I do regular 20% water changes and I did a 40% after I lost the first one...

Now I have been told dropsy can occour from bad water or just bad luck with perticular fish....I'm quite sure my water is fine.....

Are sailfin mollies prone to dropsy? I'm wondering what to do as I dont want to loose fish....Or does my girlfriend....

Any suggestions pls...

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

Ammonia, nitrites should always be 0 and nitrates preferably under 40, if your water quality does not meet these standards then it isn't good unfortunatly- cycling/new tanks often suffer from ammonia and nitrite fluctuations, which are both stressful and lethal, its good you are testing for ammonia but you really need to test for nitrites as well at this crucial stage in your tanks development .
Its not a good idea to buy or move pregnant livebearers, particually heavily pregnant ones, as they find the journey from the lfs and getting acclimatised to a new tank extremely stressful and this can result in death or birthing complications- i know its pretty difficult to find livebearers that aern't pregnant, but if you don't have a choice you should go for the least pregnant fish of the lot as you don't want to risk buying or moving a heavily pregnant fish dying in your tank.
Apart from being brought on by water quality issues, dropsy can also be internal bacterial in origin, and although it isn't a very infectious desease, if you don't treat it and you have water quality issues it can seriously increase how infectious it becomes as when fish are stressed, their imune systems don't work very efficiently and thus become more prone to picking up and becomming overwhelmed by fish deseases.
On top of all this, dropsy can also be constipation related in origin, all livebearers need veg in their diet and too many dried foods, especially fis flakes, can bring on constipation if you aern't supplimenting your livebearers diet with veg twice or more a week.

 

[love_fish]

^^^Yea, you need to feed some veggies like 3 times a week. Peas work well IMO. Just boil them for 2 minutes to soften it, pop it out of the shell, cut it up and feed it to them.