The Fish Vet's Blog

Yes and know. What you have to realise is that dropsy can be the effect of many different types of infections and/or diseases with the end result of a net fluid accumulation in freshwater fish.

Before we get into a general treatment protocol for dropsy, I would like to refer you to previous posts:

•Dropsy definition
•What does it mean if my fish has dropsy?

To reiterate, dropsy is a clinical sign indicating loss of fluid balance where there is a net influx of water. This is most commonly due to damage to kidney, gills and skin, from a variety of infectious and non-infectious causes. The prognosis for survival is poor.

Here is what you must do to reach a diagnosis (rather than spend valuable time guessing by trial and error with a cocktail of drugs). Full water quality analysis and microscopic examination of skin mucus scrapes and gill biopsies to exclude any underlying disease issues (e.g. ectoparasites) are a must. Fine needle aspirates, blood tests and bacterial cultures may also help with making a diagnosis. These findings are essential to formulate a treatment regimen.

In the case where it is an uncomplicated bacterial infection, these are the steps I take:

1. Maintain all water parameters at the fish’s optimal range (especially temperature).
2. Maintain salt (NaCl) at a rate of 5g/L (to reduce osmoregulatory stress).
3. Maintain epsom salt (MgSO4) at a rate of 1g/L (to aid gut and muscular function).
4. Perform 20-30% partial water changes using aquarium water every 2 days (to reduce waste build up).
5. Add appropriate antibiotic as a course (from the aquatic veterinarian).
6. Add frusemide to the water at 0.5-3mg/L every 3 days until clinical signs subside (as a diuretic).
*Note that all these drugs are used off-label and under veterinary supervision.

Dr Richmond Loh
DipProjMgt, BSc, BVMS, MPhil (Pathology) Murdoch, MANZCVS (Aquatics & Pathobiology), CertAqV.
Veterinarian | Adjunct Lecturer Murdoch University | President-elect WAVMA |
Secretary Aquatic Animal Health Chapter – ANZCVS.
The Fish Vet, Perth, Western Australia, AUSTRALIA.
Mobile Veterinary Medical & Diagnostic Services for fish and other aquatic creatures.
http://www.thefishvet.com.au
Ph: +61 (0)421 822 383

Q: why doesn’t an octopus need back up?

A: because he has his arm-ie.

When many people think about farm biosecurity, they think about fences, foot baths… They might think about quarantine at the airport and so on. Keeping out foot-and-mouth disease, European house borers, insects and plants and fruits…

Who did this year’s Australian Farm Biosecurity Award go to? To an aquaculture operation! And in Tasmania!

Read more below –

———- Forwarded message ———-
From: Dr. David Scarfe <DScarfe@avma.org>
Date: Tue, Oct 1, 2013 at 7:53 PM
Subject: AquaVetMed e-News: Australian Aquaculture Operation receives 2013 Biosecurity Farmer of the Year Award
To:

Dr Marty Deveney will discuss Integrated Management for Fluke Infections in Fish, next week. I wonder if there might be something useful for ornamental fish, food fish culture and public aquaria.

It’s free to attend and all you need is a computer with internet connection and a phone line.

Details below.

Wednesday, October 23, 2013
1:30 PM – 2:30 PM Brisbane, Australia (AEST) (Check time and date in your location here)

Choose to hear the audio for this meeting by dialling the following conference call information with your phone:
The Australian Toll-Free Number:
Phone Number:  1800 804 723 (check free call phone number for your country/city by clicking here)
Participant passcode: 389 131 7648

NB: Audio for the presentation will be via a toll-free teleconference line only. It will not be available through your computer speakers.

Please disregard AnyMeeting’s audio options when you click on the link– to enter the meeting you can select the “phone” icon but don’t use their number, use the one above. Also, please note that the audio will only be available via phone, not by computer speakers.

Join the meeting online by clicking on this link – http://www.anymeeting.com/aquatichealth1

First time using AnyMeeting? Take the www.anymeeting.com/SystemTest/?presenter=0 to make sure that your computer is ready to go.

If you encounter any technical difficulties viewing the online meetings, please submit a ticket at our support site: support.anymeeting.com.

Dr Marissa McNamara
Neptune Project Manager

Some interesting things I discovered about the lifecycle of this crustacean fish parasite, talking to a second year PhD student (Mikayla McCredden) who is studying this bug.

Check out the video of the bug sucking on the goldfish through a dissecting microscope (sorry poor videography) and listen in on our conversation that starts with, "So, what can you tell me about Lernaea?"

Check it out on my youtube channel by clicking here – http://youtu.be/F3AU3r5tFH0

Follow me on: Facebook "Fin Page" – YouTube – Blog – Linkedin – Twitter

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Yours sincerely,

Dr Richmond Loh DipProjMgt, BSc, BVMS, MPhil (Pathology) Murdoch, MANZCVS (Aquatics & Pathobiology), CertAqV.
Veterinarian | Adjunct Lecturer Murdoch University | President-elect WAVMA |

Secretary Aquatic Animal Health Chapter – ANZCVS.
The Fish Vet, Perth, Western Australia, AUSTRALIA.

Mobile Veterinary Medical & Diagnostic Services for fish and other aquatic creatures.
http://www.thefishvet.com.au
Ph: +61 (0)421 822 383

Looking for more books? Check out this site.

Check out my story as a fresh new veterinary graduate over a decade ago when I embarked on an adventure to help with research into the demise of albatrosses.

The article with pictures (taken on a Kodachrome SLR camera!) can be found on pages 72-76 at this link –

Q: why do squid make children laugh?

A: Because they always have ten tickles!

Earlier last month, we ran a T-shirt design competition to raise awareness about the work aquatic veterinarians do.

The theme was along these lines:
Veterinarians treat more than one SPECIES🐱🐶🐴🐄🐏🐷.
Aquatic veterinarians treat more than one PHYLA 🐟🐬🐢🐌🐸🐧🐊♋️🍤.

I employed the services of cloud sourcing for the design and created a poll to help choose the winning design. Those who voted went into the draw to win one of the products available through The Fish Vet’s online store.

Dr Kathy Larson, of Ocean Park aquarium in Hong Kong, is the lucky winner of a bottle of TheFishVet’s Gel Powder.

We are now in the next phase of organising the logistics for production and distribution of the T-shirts. Stay tuned for more news on its progress.

—
Yours sincerely,

Dr Richmond Loh
DipProjMgt, BSc, BVMS, MPhil (Pathology) Murdoch, MANZCVS (Aquatics& Pathobiology), CertAqV.
The Fish Vet, Perth, Western Australia.
Veterinary Medicine for fish.
W: http://www.thefishvet.com.au
E: thefishvet@gmail.com
P: +61 (0)421 822 383

Read More here – http://mobile.news.com.au/lifestyle/health/bacteria-in-salt-water-infects-31-in-florida/story-fneuzlbd-1226738704576

Follow me on: Facebook "Fin Page" – YouTube – Blog – Linkedin – Twitter

—
Yours sincerely,

Dr Richmond Loh DipProjMgt, BSc, BVMS, MPhil (Pathology) Murdoch, MANZCVS (Aquatics & Pathobiology), CertAqV.Veterinarian | Adjunct Lecturer Murdoch University | President-elect WAVMA |
Secretary Aquatic Animal Health Chapter – ANZCVS.
The Fish Vet, Perth, Western Australia, AUSTRALIA. Mobile Veterinary Medical & Diagnostic Services for fish and other aquatic creatures.
http://www.thefishvet.com.au
Ph: +61 (0)421 822 383

Looking for more books? Check out this site.

See how a fish has much the same organs as many other animals!
A good simplified internal anatomy diagram can be found at this link – http://marinewaters.fish.wa.gov.au/wp-content/uploads/Internal-anatomy-labels-and-information.pdf