# Dropsy in female bettas.



## xerxeswasachump (Mar 29, 2006)

I had 4 female bettas in my community tank. The alpha female got dropsy and died last week. I tried feeding her peas and she ate them, but she still ended up with dropsy. 
This week, the 2nd betta in the pecking order developed dropsy as well. I tried giving her a salt bath but nothing happened.
Now the other two bettas are swelling. None of the other fish in the tank seem to have been affected. Are there any betta specific diseases or anything? 
I am not sure how old the bettas are. I bought them as adults but they have definitely grown in the 2 months that i have owned them. 
I have been feeding them peas all week but nothing seems to help. 
When the first betta got sick i treated the tank with quick cure but nothing happened. 
I know it sounds cruel, but i really can't afford spending tons of money on medications that don't work. It would be much cheaper for me to just get new bettas. Are there any other "home remedies" that i can try? 
Could the black worms that i fed them recently as a treat have anything to do with this? If so, then why aren't my other fish affected?
Unfortunately, i don't have a quarantine tank right now to put the sick bettas in. I just put them in the crab tank and wait for him to eat them. Right now, i pretty much consider the situation hopeless but i would like to know what happened so i can prevent it in the future.


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## Echo (Apr 23, 2006)

Well first off it would be better to put your betta in ANYTHING other then were it's not going to have a chance at all. Dropsy isn't contagious, I think it's actually kidney failure, so more then likely it has something to do with the quality of your water. What size tank is it? How often do you do water changes? How much water do you take out? What other fish are still in there?

Dropsy is usually a pretty hopeless disease, but the best thing to do is to give your betta an Epsom salt bath for about 5 minutes. Other salts make the betta retain more fluid were as Epsom salt helps to draw out the extra fluid. I would do a large water change on the tank. If you notice any other fish getting sick take them out and put them in any kind of contianer you have i.e. cool whip bowl, mason jar, a bucket and give them fresh unchlorinated water. If they continue to pine cone then give them the bath.


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## xerxeswasachump (Mar 29, 2006)

OHHHH! EPSOM SALTS! Interesting. I wonder where i can find that stuff for free.
I am aware that dropsy is kidney failure and that it is hopeless.
Look at my sig for my tank specs. I do 10-15% water changes once a week. My water is just fine. I tested it when the bettas started getting sick. I'm really terrified this is some sort of fungally induced thing. One of the bettas has a lump on it's snout. I always thought it was a callous from fighting, but today it looks a little fuzzy, which i know is a sign of fungal infection. So, now i am really screwed. I'll move all of the bettas to the crab tank. I doubt he will get an infection from them. I mean, he'as a freakin' crab right?


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## BettaMomma (Apr 20, 2006)

I'd say that the blackworms could definitely have had something to do with this infection. Female bettas are greedy little hogs - and they probably sucked up a good percentage of them when you put them into the tank. Live foods can carry parasites in on them and infect your fish. The fact that they're all coming down with the same infection tells me that they most likely have internal parasites from these worms. One medication that I could recommend giving a try is PraziPro. It's great stuff. 

You are right - dropsy is a condition which appears during/after kidney failure. Most often it's due to a severe infection which affects the fish to the point of kidney failure, then the outward signs show up, and by then it's too late. I have seen oh... probably 5? maybe 6? of my 60-some adopted bettas that have come on thru my doors go down with dropsy. Only one of them ever beat it (a small female from WalMart). I found her incredibly bloated in the tank one day pineconed to the point of looking like a puffer fish - I pulled her out immediately, treated her in a 1 gallon isolation tank with Jungle Fungus Clear and salt for a couple of weeks - religiously kept her tank clean and it was also unheated. After a week or so the swelling started to recede, and she's back to her normal healthy happy self living in the nice toasty 10g once again.

She started out in my cycled 10g sorority tank, and no one else in the tank got what she had, luckily. I pulled her out as soon as I saw what was going on in there. 

The thing w/dropsy is that it's a condition that's caused by a disease. Figuring out they have the dropsy condition is very simple - it's finding out what the underlying cause of it all is, hoping to catch whatever that is in time, and then attempting to treat it, that's extremely difficult. 

One last note - I used to think that using aquarium salt in a tank would hold fluids in a fish also, but then I actually did a whole ton of reading and research on the subject and found that due to the osmoregulatory processes in which fish's skin allows fluids to travel in and out of the body, fluids will travel out of the fish's body, as it works to travel toward more saline bodies of water. Espom salt will also pull fluid from the fish.

If I were you, I'd find some kind of container to at least take the girls out and let them die in peace. They will most likely (unfortunately) die - it might be quick, it might take up to a few weeks. But I'd not feed them to the crab. That would be rather tragic for them. If you're so inclined also, you might want to consider treating them. I would - I go to the ends of the earth to find whatever medication it takes to give my fish, but I'm kinda psychotic like that.

I hope you reach a decision you and the fish are comfortable with.


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## Damon (Jan 18, 2005)

All good theories but you're missing one thing............
Dropsy isn't a disease but a symptom caused by an underlying disease or infection. Compare it to having a runny nose (though more severe). You get runny noses when you have a cold. Same with dropsey. Its almost always fatal because its the result of the fish not being able to fight off whats wrong. Sounds like your tank has something in it and its spreading to your others. Look for other symptoms that may have or are occuring now.


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## xerxeswasachump (Mar 29, 2006)

Guys, i get what dropsy is. It is cool. Anyway, i will go get some epsom salts from health services at my school. I'll see if it works. 

Do you guys think i should treat my whole community tank with prazi pro?


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## Sprite42 (Mar 10, 2006)

Keep in mind these are bettas and can live in an unfiltered tank. You don't have to have anything fancy for them. As long as the water is clean and warm, you can keep them in a rubbermaid tub. I would not treat the whole tank with PraziPro. Even just replacing the female bettas is still not addressing the root of the problem. It is something that is effecting them only. It sounds like a stress related problem. Continual stress weakens a fish's ability to fight off infections and such. Female bettas are best kept in odd numbers so that one or two are not picked on all the time.

What is your tank temp? Where did you get the blackworms and how many did you feed? Were the worms alive when you fed them? Did your other fish eat them?

If they were my fish, I would move them to individual clean containers that holds at least one gallon and keep the water pristine even if it means changing it every day. Keep it at an even temp around 78 degrees. You could even wrap a dark towel around it to give them some comfort and security. In other words, minimize their stress as much as you can. Sometimes, females do not work together in any combination. If you are going to keep them, you always need a back up plan for just such an event.

THere is no 'home remedy' for dropsy. It is hit or miss. Some survive it and some do not. Most do not. All you can do right now is make them as comfortable as possible and hope for the best. I definitely would not feed them to the crab. You don't know if whatever the underlying illness is might have some effect on him.


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## alphabetta (Apr 26, 2006)

In my experience, dropsy is contageous. But it probably depends on what virus is actually causing it. Once I started sterilizing my betta jars regularly, the dropsy cases went away. I believe it can be casue by live foods or poorly sterilized frozen foods you introduce. The best is to maintain clean water for the bettas, and get your foods from a good source. Once a betta has dropsy and is in a community tank, remove it right away and put it in a hospital tank. I would also clean the tank they were in well, and add some preventative medicen for the rest of the community. The betta who has dropsy has very little to no chance of survival, but it never hurts to try and save it anyway.


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## xerxeswasachump (Mar 29, 2006)

Ok, something wierd is going on in my community tank. My big wood shrimp (4 or 5") just died last night. I have a feeling he was stressed out for some unknown reason. He did fine for a long time too. Also, one of my other bettas has a large swelling on its snout, i think it might be a fungal infection that induced all of these illnesses. Also, i have 0 nitrites but for some reason my nitrates remain really high. I have been doing water changes of 25% every day! What could be causing such high nitrates? 
I think it might be runoff from the soil on the land mass. Unfortunately, i really need the soil on the land mass because i need live plants to consume the frog poop.
The wierdest part is that i have some other animals that are supposedly very sensitive to water quality that have been doing wonderful through all of this. My little checkerboard cichlid, for instance, seems very happy and not stressed at all. Also, all of my other shrimp are doing great. 
As for my water info: pH 7.4, 76 degrees F, 0 nitrites, around 80ppm nitrates (!!!!)

I bought the black worms from a local, very reputable, wonderful, LFS. They feed the worms to all of their animals and don't normally have problems. Also, all of my other fish and shrimp definitely feasted on the worms as well. I also feed the same worms to my roomates paddletail newt and he is alive and well.


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## Sprite42 (Mar 10, 2006)

What kind of soil are you using? How is it set up? Approximately how much water to land ratio do you have? You have local mosses and plants, right? Did you clean them good before introducing them? Where did you get them from?

Consume frog poop? I must be a little dense here, I cannot picture your setup. Any chance of a picture?


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## BettaMomma (Apr 20, 2006)

alpha - *dropsy* itself is not contagious - because it's not a disease or a virus. It's just a condition.
One of the thousand diseases that cause the condition can be, and most likely is, contagious.


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## xerxeswasachump (Mar 29, 2006)

Yeah, i've figured out that the fish just got sick from beign stressed out by something. What that something is, however, i do not know. They lived together as a group for about 6 months without getting sick. So, anyway, how do i insert a picture? I would love to show you guys what the tank looks like.


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## Sprite42 (Mar 10, 2006)

I don't know how everyone else posts their pictures, I have mine on photobucket and just cut and past them in a post. LOL That isn't very helpful, I know. You may want to look at the stickys in photo forums here or do a search (at the top of the page) for 'how-to's'.

I was asking about the 'frog poo' cuz I didn't see any listed in your sig. When you change the water, do you also vacuum up the excess 'gunk' on the bottom? I am still trying to figure the source of the high nitrates. If the nitrates are consistently that high, that would be enough to cause stress related problems to your critters.

Is that shrimp in your avatar also an inhabitant of this tank? If he is, he is quite capable of doing some damage to your fish...Lunch, anyone?


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## xerxeswasachump (Mar 29, 2006)

He is and he is very tiny. Defintiely not capable of doing anything but freaking them out a little bit. I also have anothing long arm shrimp that is really small too. I think i am gonna get rid of all of my fish and turn this into a shrimp/frog tank.


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## BettaMomma (Apr 20, 2006)

Hey, have you ever tested the water coming right out of your tap?
I have a friend who couldn't figure out why his nitrates were constantly skyrocketing - and then he tested his tap water... it was coming out of the tap that way!


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## xerxeswasachump (Mar 29, 2006)

That is a great idea! What would i do though? How would i lower the nitrates if they are in my tap water? 

I'm starting to wish i had never bought a test kit.

EDIT: here is a picture of my setup. The sticks have all be removed because they started to grow mold. The image is attached to the thread. The land mass is supported by two cinderblocks and an ugly plastic thing that used to be part of a waterfall setup. It is also much mroe heavily planted now. The picture is about a month old.


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