Cloudy Water and Fish with dropsy

Question
Hi Chris,

I have a 16 gallon tank for around 2 months now. I used to have two oranda goldfish in there but one of them died 2 weeks ago. The amonia levels are still far too high, ph and nitrite are fine. My one fish now has dropsy and the pet store gave me medication which I put in yesterday for the first time. Today I came home and the water is very cloudy - something that never happened before. I would think that was caused by the tablets (?). Because the amonia levels are still far too high, the pet store also gave me positive bacteria and told me to use that after doing a 50% water change to first of all get the amonia down which I did today - despite the cloudiness. I am not sure what to do now. Should I use the medication again or wait until the water has cleared? I will do a water test tomorrow to see whether the amonia has gone down. (I have tried for weeks now to get it down but without success). Do you have any advise? I am not sure about using the medication now (and I understand the medication only works in perfect water conditions) but my fish is really blown up. What can I do? Thanks so much for your help.
Isabelle

Answer
Hi Isabelle;

Dropsy is a very difficult and often impossible problem to treat. It isn't actually a disease in itself but a symptom of something else. Fluid builds up in the body causing the bloated appearance and often "pineconing" from scales sticking out. It's usually from advanced kidney failure but it could also be from infection. An antibiotic is the most commonly recommended treatment so keep using it if it says it's for internal infections. The medicine may indeed be causing the cloudiness. Make a 50% water change every day, right before each dose of medicine until the ammonia goes down to zero and stays there. Vacuum the gravel too. When ammonia stays elevated after the break-in period should be over, it means that there is a lot of waste in the gravel so you will want to get that out of there. Excess waste is from overfeeding and/or overcrowding.

If he isn't feeling like eating, don't feed him at all right now. Fish can go for 2 weeks with no food at all so don't worry that he will starve. If he does eat, feed once a day and only what he will eat from all areas of the tank in 5 minutes or less. This is a standard rule no matter how many fish you have. Most of us overfeed from time to time. We just have to clean up after ourselves when we do and feed less after that.

Here are some links that may help you more;

Dropsy;

http://badmanstropicalfish.com/articles/article24.html

Here is my own about new tanks;

http://www.xanga.com/Expert_Fish_Help

Overfeeding;

http://www.bestfish.com/overfeed.html

High ammonia levels;

http://www.bestfish.com/tips/092498.html

I hope he feels better...

At Your Service;
Chris Robbins