RE: Re: oh no!

[Tom Mroz <tmroz@art-inc.com>]

I've seen this all too often myself.  The fish (more often male, it seems) 
becomes slightly less active, and less interested in food.  His mouth hangs 
open just a bit -all the time.  Over the course of the next few days, his 
mouth opens more and his breathing becomes more labored.  He may or may not 
show an interest in food, but he rarely actually eats anything. 
 Eventually, his mouth will hang wide open, and gills will be puffing.  By 
then, his body begins to swell and eventually he ends up with all of the 
classic dropsy symptoms before dying altogether.  I've seen this 
progression to run as quickly as a few days, and as long as a week or week 
and a half.  I tried previously with no luck to treat this with various 
medicines including Kanacin and others that have been suggested.  I have 
not tried medication immediately upon the first symptom, because it is hard 
to tell the exact onset.  Also, I have found that many of the males that I 
have witnessed contracting this disease seem to do so right after spawning. 
 It is very strange to watch a female tending a clutch of viable eggs while 
her male, who was displaying so nicely prior to the spawn is now swelling 
up and hanging about the tank listlessly.  For the record, I have seen this 
in many apistos, including pandurini, nijsseni (ALWAYS happens to my 
nijsseni on first or second spawning), cacatuoides, agasizzi, breitbinden, 
and a few others.  I have seen less of it since I put many of my more 
tolerant apistos (agasizzi, cacatuoides, pandurini, etc.) on tap water 
only.  Don't know if this is a water chemistry thing, or a water quality 
thing.  I tend to do more frequent and larger water changes with only tap 
because of my limited RO water supply.

Tom