Gudday gang,
I know that dropsy in Orandas has been done to death, but being in the land of Aus naturally I'm having some difficulties obtaining the meds requried.
Ok tank stats:
Tank 4'x2'x2' been set up since May '07, run reverse under gravel with Eheim Professional 2 2028, air curtain running length of tank pumping 900lph
Inhabitants are 5 Orandas ranging in size from 3-4"
A general water change (a good 1/3-1/2 tank volume), gravel vacc, filter wool replacement was done 4 days ago, it was rather overdue as I've been in hospital (6wks) Prime is used as water conditioner, I did put some coral skeleton in the canister filter to buffer pH.
There have been no new fish added & the fish are fed a mix of Hikari Oranda pellets (soaked & the air pressed out of them) Hikari Lionhead pellets, Spectum Thera +A, peas, duckweed & sometimes nori.
pH: 6.8
Ammonia: 0
Nitrite:0
Nitrate: 10
Phosphate: 0.1 all tested today
All fish are eating well

Alright, what's been happening. Cleo my orange oranda has always been round & hence seems more 'floaty' than the others, she would often just stop swimming & slowly float to the surface, sometime she would also hang around upside down or swim around upside down, but when stimulated would right herself no problems. Apparently she was good the whole time I was in hospital, Mum was feeding them & they were getting less then what I would probably give them & Cleo seemed to be right way up 99% of the time, since I've been home I noticed that she was looking like she was pineconing on the left side so after searching here I decided to pull her out & segregate her in some epsom salts (1/8th tsp/5gals) she sure pooed alot & seemed to be more in control with her swimming so i moved her back to the main tank.
Later that day she was floating up the top again & I was a bit dubious about one of the others so i decided to add epsom salts to the main tank the next day & observe them.
Today when the lights came on I noticed Poppy my blue oranda seemed to be pineconing a little on his right side & his right eye looked like it was starting to popeye. Cleo has gone black on the bottom of her face, she's even more pineconed & her tail has all frayed, split & looks bloody so I did a 1/2 tank water change, redosed the epsom salts that were removed during the water change, dosed with some melafix (for Cleo's tail) & went to the local vet & begged them for some metronidazole.
I found a food dose for metronidazole of 250mg/25gm food so will crush the tablet & soak the food in it.

Has anybody got any other ideas? What else would be available 'this side of the pond'?
Stupid rotten goldfish, i never had this trouble with health in my marine tanks! you just gotta love them to death though as they're so adorable

Cheers, Jodie

oh yeah, pH post water change 7.0 & pH from tap 7.0

Hello and sorry to hear your fish are having trouble.

'Fishmerized' is on your side of the world and will be able to advise you on what's available over there - I'm sure she'll be along soon.
I think you'll find that the undergravel filters are very bad for goldfish as they harbour a lot of bad bacteria. If you'd been unwell for 6 weeks and unable to do water changes your cycle may even have crashed (black marks usually indicate ammonia burn) and it seems that your fish now have bacterial infections. Fishmerized can talk you through what to do once she's on.
Let's hope you can save them.

Hello Sunny, read the thread by Iain just further down the forum page a bit, it goes into detail of how to treat fish with triple sulfa, which I have found the best antibacterial treatment available in Australia. If you have any further questions please ask.

http://www.kokosgoldfish.invisionzone.com/...showtopic=63659

Gudday, yeah I read that last night but didn't want to go throwing everything in at once & totally nuking the tank.
Today we had to euthanase Cleo, she was 10x worse, she wasn't able to get off the surface at all & then she started floating on her side too, didn't want to eat anything & was having troubles breathing too & was really starting to become distressed so it was off to the 'big fishtank in the sky' for her sadly.
Poppy on the other hand seems to be a little better, he seems brighter in himself, the swelling around his eye seems to have reduced & I think that his scales on the left side are looking flatter, the right doesn't look any worse so maybe we'll have a winner with him.
I'll keep you posted.

How is it going with Poppy, Sunny?

Poppy's beautiful now, 100% all fixed up.
I know that this is a captain obvious question but what is the preferred pH & temperature range for these guys anyway? The bloke at the LFS said that it may be that my pH is a little on the low side & that's why they keep getting sick

Hi Jodie, Sorry I missed this post! how's things going with your fish? -Did you try treating them with metron? I'd be interested to see if this is the reason why Poppy is improving. You're lucky you were able to convince your vet to give you the meds, I've had no luck with local vets here. -Even the supposed 'exotic' vet who promotes himself as able to treat fish here in melbourne. He hears it's a goldfish and it's like 'it's just a goldfish' not like some more exotic cichlid, (doesn't matter that the amount of money I spend on the goldfish is as much as/more than any old cichlid.)

Yeah, Poppy's perfect now.
I went to Trans the other day to try to find a replacement for Cleo, they had a really cute baby telescope & a baby ranchu so I got them both, this morning the telescope looked 'chalky' on his black tail & this afternoon I think that I can see whitespot on his tail! So both of the new kids are now being treated with triplesulfa for 3 days so we'll see what happens.
I put some bi-carb in the main tank to raise the pH so we'll see if that makes those little blighters healthier too.
I agree with you about the cost, i've spent more on meds for these guys then i have on buying them in the first place.
I think that the main reason that i was able to get the meds was that they knew me over there (i've worked in the veterinary industry for 15 years as a vet nurse) but they have supplied it to another client there as well so i guess it depends on the vet.

Sunny, how is the fish doing now?