Help: What do I do next?

[Maltee]

My betta that I've had for 14 months just died yesterday. I am pretty sure he died of dropsy. He became suddenly ill, stopped eating, and had pinecone scales.

What do I do now? I still have an aquatic snail and a live amazon sword plant in the tank (5 gallon). I know very little about how to care for the snail. Does the snail need to have a fish to produce waste to feed off of?

I would like to add another fish, but what do I need to do before I add one? Since my previous fish died of dropsy, I'd be worried that another fish would catch it. I would hate to see another fish die that way.

 

[brennae]

Sorry about your fish. You can feed your snail algae wafers for now. I have no experience with dropsy so hopefully someone else can chime in.

 

[librarygirl]

Dropsy itself isn't contagious; it's a symptom of something else usually, like diet, poor water quality, etc. You could move the snail to a smaller container or tank with an air stone and then do some larger water changes on the tank and treat the current tank with ammonia for a while; this will keep it cycled and potentially kill off anything that might be in there that would infect another fish. If there is anything contagious in the tank it will likely die off without a fish to host on, although if you keep the snail in there and do nothing to feed the good bacteria in the tank it will die off and you'll have to recycle it. If you can't move the snail, you could try feeding the tank some fish food every day so that it breaks down and feeds the bacteria some ammonia at least. Not sure if this will keep the tank cycled enough, so when/if you get another fish you'll have to keep testing the water and treat it as a fish-in cycle until you know the tank can hold another fish without any ammonia or nitrite spikes. You could also clean the tank very well, do some large water changes with substrate vacs, swish the filter media in old tank water, maybe even clean it out with vinegar (again, you'd have to do something with the snail though).

Sorry about your fish.

 

[flitabout]

Dropsy is a pain and like librarygirl said it isn't contagious. It is generally a symptom of bad water quality resulting in a stressed out fish. First off what kind of snail is it? If you are talking about a pond snail well as long as you have your water aerated I have found it impossible to kill them. Mine came in with plants that were added when I was cycling and if ammo at 4ppm didn't take them out nothing will!
Most other snails will not have same sturdy consitution. So I am going to say turn your tank into a qt for a few weeks and really work hard to keep that water clean. Do a large water change like 75-90% every couple of days test your water everyday. Make sure that your levels are 0 ammo, 0 Nitrite, and 5-10 nitrate I would keep adding very small amounts of flake to the tank every couple of days to feed the snail and the bb. Just watch that water quality and you should be fine to add a new fish.

 

[Maltee]

My snail is a zebra nerite.

I do have a small 1.5 gallon tank I can move the snail to.

What do you think would be the easiest way to prepare the 5 gallon for another fish? I tried to do a fishless cycle on my 5 gallon with ammonia, but I wasn't very successful. I feel nervous about trying to do that again.

 

[flitabout]

Well not knowing how you did your fishless is kind of a problem. Do you have a master test kit? Do you know what your current parametes are? That might have been the cause of the dropsy.

 

[Maltee]

I do not have the full test kit. I have the liquid test for ammonia. I just tested the ammonia and it's at 0 ppm right now.