Post-Dropsy issues

[Micpak 1]

Back in early July, I'm pretty sure I contaminated my tank with nerite snails.   I knew snails don't get infected with fish diseases so I thought they'd be fine to add, it didn't occur to me that they could still carry stuff into the tank. 

Anyway, one of my fish got dropsy. It was really strange because he was acting completely normal, but his scales looked funny to me and when I looked from above he was starting to pinecone. I was worried that moving him to QT would stress him out, and since whatever the problem was was already in the main tank, I treated the entire tank with Furan 2 and Kanaplex. He recovered. I know dropsy is a sign of organ damage, and I don't know if that can be remedied. Some days he has a little bit of pineconing and other days he looks like nothing ever happened. A couple days ago, his pineconing got pretty bad. I put him in an epsom salt bath, it improved a little bit, but today it's back. He's had another bath but I am not noticing any difference.

 

Ammonia Level(Tank): 0

 Nitrite Level(Tank): 0

 Nitrate level(Tank): 10

 Ammonia Level(Tap): 0.25

 Nitrite Level(Tap): 0

 Nitrate level(Tap): 0

 Ph Level, Tank (If possible, KH, GH and chloramines): 8.2

 Ph Level, Tap (If possible, KH, GH and chloramines): 8.6

Other Required Info:

 Brand of test-kit used and whether strips or drops? API, drops

 Water temperature? 72

 Tank size (how many gals.) and how long has it been running? 40, 11 months

 What is the name and "size of the filter"(s)? Hydor 250, Fluval 407, a sponge filter

 How often do you change the water and how much? Once a week, 50ish%

 How many days ago was the last water change and how much did you change? 3 days ago, 50%

 How many fish in the tank and their size? Two ranchu: 3.5 inches, an oranda: 3 inches, 2 nerite snails

 What kind of water additives or conditioners? Seachem Prime, Seachem replenish, Easygreen

 What do you feed your fish and how often? Once a day, Repashy or a mix of Hikari/ NLS pellets

 Any new fish added to the tank? not since the snails

 Any medications added to the tank? not since Furan 2/ Kanaplex

 List entire medication/treatment history for fish and tank.Please include salt, Prazi, PP, etc and the approximate time and duration of treatment.

Oranda fish I've had for four years from Petland, he's had two treatments of Prazi

Ranchus I got in January, had two treatments of Prazi and some aquarium salt as preventative after shipping

All had Kanaplex for 6 days and Furan 2 for four days in July

 Any unusual findings on the fish such as "grains of salt," bloody streaks, frayed fins or fungus? no

 Any unusual behavior like staying at the bottom, not eating, etc.? He seems to be a little lethargic today, when I came in the room he was sleeping in the plants. When he sees me he comes to the front and he ate when I fed them. He is swimming around after his salt bath, but I suspect he'll go nap when I leave.

 

Basically, I don't know what to do. I feel awful for getting him sick.  I was so glad that he made it through the initial illness, but now I don't know how to keep him healthy & happy. Image of him in his salt bath earlier today.

[Micpak 1]

Update: He was pretty active after his salt bath yesterday and I didn't catch him napping today. His scales don't look any better.

[Micpak 1]

Another update: Scales still bad. He had one red streak in one of his pectoral fins today. I did an 80% water change and found one of my snails dead under the filter sponge I have over the Fluval intake. I'm really hoping his flareup was his way of telling me he wasn't happy with his roommate situation. If the streak isn't looking better by tomorrow, I think I will do another course of Furan 2. Please let me know if there's something else I should be doing.

[koko 14,327]

21 hours ago, Micpak said:

Another update: Scales still bad. He had one red streak in one of his pectoral fins today. I did an 80% water change and found one of my snails dead under the filter sponge I have over the Fluval intake. I'm really hoping his flareup was his way of telling me he wasn't happy with his roommate situation. If the streak isn't looking better by tomorrow, I think I will do another course of Furan 2. Please let me know if there's something else I should be doing.

WOW! This is a bad cause of Dropsy's. The first thing I would do is either get the fish into a QT tank with a heater. Get the temp up to 78-80F also you need to get some Epsom salt. Epsom salt helps to reduce the swelling.

As for meds. I know that @Arctic Mama is the best on the forum. If I remember right you will need KANA and maybe Metro. But lets see what she has to say.

How often are you cleaning out the filters? When you can a full tank shot. Dropsy's can be caused by parasites or bacteria  

[Arctic Mama 3,616]

It’s harsh, but given it has been a few months since you did it, another two week round of Kanamycin and Furan-2 is what I’d do along with that epsom salt. We should be able to tell in 4-5 days if it’s effective. Unless you can get your hands quickly on some oxytetracycline, which is broader spectrum and slightly gentler than kana, I think that’s your best bet to try and nail this. I will say it’s not looking good with that much swelling as you know, it often means underlying organ failure, but if you’re willing to try I think as a last ditch attempt this stands the best chance of success.

Treat any exposed fish at the same time, please, including the snails. We don’t want to just let the same pathogen fester at a low grade in one of them, only to reinfect the weaker one later on. I’d say a thorough potassium permanganate nuking of the tank and possibly nuking the filter, too, might not be amiss, if you want to have the absolute best shot of nailing this once and for all.

[Micpak 1]

Should I move them all into a QT tub for treatment? I've been doing epsom salt baths but I've read a lot of conflicting info on putting it in the tank so I haven't done that yet. 

Previously I treated the entire system-- all fish, filters, snails. I'm starting to think I didn't treat long enough, I was reading other topics on here and was seeing treatment for up to 2 weeks. I just followed the directions on the packages which was not that long.

I'm willing to nuke the tank, but I've never dealt with potassium permanganate before so I could use some pointers.

Here's the tank after a water change so it's kinda cloudy. I have sponges over the filter intakes which I squeeze out weekly, I clean the canisters in dechlorinated water once every couple months.

[Micpak 1]

(also no idea where to get the "right" potassium permanganate, do you have a brand to look for?)

I'm not seeing anywhere to get oxytetracycline. Unfortunately I only have crumbs of kanamycin left, fastest delivery is Monday. 

edit: it said two day shipping but it's actually not coming until Tuesday. ://

[Arctic Mama 3,616]

Unfortunately if you use the PP it will probably kill off your elodea, at least. Moss balls and what looks like Java fern should survive. 
 

Yes, I generally find the packet instructions don’t yield the best results on antibiotics. Here is a source for powdered oxy, by the way:

https://www.valleyvet.com/ct_detail.html?pgguid=7979f34c-9ad9-4f93-83c8-1bc5c4750282&itemguid=ae219b94-8f27-47cc-9c58-588d2ae5075b&sfb=1&grp=X000&grpc=X200&grpsc=X210&sp=f&utm_content=1379RX&ccd=&utm_source=&utm_medium=&msclkid=ab25ba399efa194411c7e58370ea4bf9&utm_campaign=F Rx Swine (X210) v2 PLA&utm_term=4584757329470443
 

And here is another favorite of mine, they also have oxy for fish as well as kana and medicated foods

https://angelsplus.com/collections/fish-medications

 

If you DO treat the whole tank you won’t have to nuke it, as any animals in there and the plants too will be exposed to the meds. But it takes much more medication and can lengthen the treatment cycle, as all the bio matter in the tank can react with the meds and make some percent of them inert, faster. So if you treated them in quarantine, you would either want to leave the main tank empty for a month on VERY warm (like, 85-90 degrees F) and run some meth blue, hydrogen peroxide, or potassium permanganate in there to help sanitize, or break down snd sterilize the whole thing.

The thought is that long enough without a host and warm enough, any parasites, viruses, or bacteria will die. Most have about a two week half life in a system with no hosts, and heat speeds that up. Oxidizing and reducing agents like PP and hydrogen peroxide further help with sanitizing and breaking down those biological agents in the tank. If you’re in a hurry you can always add more PP and speed it up too, but seeing your setup I think either treating in tank it just moving everyone to QT and running a long, hot, empty cycle in your main aquarium, with a gentle oxidizing antiseptic, would probably suffice.

The epsom won’t hurt the other fish or snails, that’s not a concern  and it will make your currently worst ailing fish more comfortable.

[Micpak 1]

Okay! I got some Kanaplex today, thankfully a LFS had it. I got more Furan-2 delivered today and Kanaplex coming Tuesday. If my math is correct, I should have enough of each to do at least 14 days of treatment in the main tank. If I just follow the box directions but extend duration, I'd be redosing Furan-2 daily and Kanaplex every other day, so I think I'll be doing water changes every other day. Should I just do 30% or would larger be good?

I've seen either 1/8 or 1/4 teaspoon per ten gallons for epsom salt. What do you recommend? I did 1/8 per 10 earlier today.

[Arctic Mama 3,616]

So you’d want to do a BIG water change with the kanaplex. Like 80% or more, and then replace both meds to their full dose in the fresh water then. And I’d run the epsom at 1/4 tsp per ten gallons, also replaced with the water change. Just be sure to keep the tank well aerated snd warmed up. As warm as you can without the fish gasping at the surface - mine can usually handle 78-80 degrees F but it just depends on the fish. The warmth speeds up their metabolisms. Feeding very, very lightly. Like two mouthfuls of food per fish twice daily.

[Micpak 1]

Sounds good. Thank you so much for your help! I'll update if there are any changes.

[Micpak 1]

Not looking good.  He hasn't been getting better or worse, except today he's pretty much out of energy. He tucked himself behind the filter sponges, I thought he was dead, but I think he just wanted a spot where he didn't have to move. When I got him out of there, he was just kind of floating around and was being pushed by the filter. I went ahead and set up a QT tub for him so he can rest. Added meds and I did 1/2tsp of Epsom salt so hopefully get some fluid off of him. He will still eat, but only one piece of food at a time. 

Hoping he can get some rest and start looking better in a couple days, otherwise I will probably put him to sleep. 

[Arctic Mama 3,616]

I’m sorry, when the dropsy is that severe it is often really difficult to manage, let alone recover from. If you do decide to put him down finish out the whole treatment though, so you can have reasonable assurance that any news fish brought into the system after their own quarantine won’t then be infected by whatever was still hanging out in the tank from the snails.

[Micpak 1]

He passed away last night. Here are some of my favorite pictures of him, including his existential crisis in quarantine. 

[FishyMandy 6,266]

Im so sorry for your loss