Balls...
The info is not that great, heres my understanding;
Basically Dropsy while possibly related to various issues results in liquid retention in the affected fish, leading to bloatedness and the pineconing effect obvios on your fish (the slightly lifted scales) it has a high mortality rate and treatment is not always succesful, especially considering the wide variety of different possible causes.
As i mentioned in my previous post;
Bacterial, Nutritional, Osmoregulatory and a new addition (having just checked) Viral.....
The reason a salt bath (or adding Epsom to the tank, rather than just bathing the fish) is a bad idea is that this may further interfere with the Osmoregulatory function of the fish, Osmoregulation to my little knowledge is the process via which fish maintain a healthy level of minerals. This function can be impeded by dissolved solids in the water, a lack of dissolved solids and countless environmental factors. What are your tank stats, do you make any chemical additions to your tank aside from Dechlor?
Viral is probaly the least commonly reported cause (which realistically means very little).
Bacterial appears to be fairly common, but you may have trouble treating bacterial dropsy for reason i will soon go into (look for the *).
Nutritional dropsy is generally linked to over feeding, particularly too much protein (bloodworm seems to be mentioned the most often).
The best steps you can take at the moment are;
Quarantine; easier to treat and will hopefully prevent the illness (if bacterial/viral) from spreading further, that is, if it hasn't already.
Feed pea; Just normal defrosted and mushed up garden pea is accepted as a laxative when fed to fish, at least it does seem to get their bowels moving. If nutritional this may help, either way it is more likely to benefit your fish (if my understanding of dropsy is correct) at ths time, more than flake etc. Daphinia is also apparently good for fishies bowel movements. Do you give your fish any vitamins. As i asked before, what do you feed and how often?
Oxygenation; Fish may struggle to get oxygen, due to stress and also if you use a medication*, make sure the potential for oxygen is as high as possible by making sure surface water stimulation is as high as you can get it.
Medication; Personally i'd use a general med or a bactericide. If you have access to antibiotics these could also help.
Epsom Bath; To draw off excess fluid, this link deals with it better than i can-->
http
/badmanstropicalfish.com/articles/article24.html
Further prevention; Once you have analysed the possible causes and decided which is the most likely cause, if you can... rectify it. For the benefit of your fish.
Anyhow, hope that helped, i do enjoy wittering, apologies.
Good luck to your fish
GB
Some further reading;
http/www.skepticalaquarist.com/docs/health/bactin2.shtml (not read it myself yet, more of a personal reminder than anything, sorry
)
Edit; If wrong on any account
please correct me, this is what i've picked up over the 5/6 months i've kept fish and would much appreciate the info, hints, tips or discussion on possible gaps/flaws in the knowledge i presume to have.
