Help! two fish died of Dropsy

[kjace_fish]

Good evening, new member here. I have had 5 red skirt tetras in my tank for about 2 years now. All have been healthy and have never had any issues until today.

As of this morning, I had one mystery snail and 5 fish. All 6 of them get along well and never get aggressive with each other, the fish always school together and get along.

The water parameters and water changes have always been the same last 2 years and I have never had issues with it before.

My fish were all fine when I woke up, I wrote a 2-hour midterm and then when I looked over at the tank one of my male tetras was very very fat and also grey instead of its bright orange colour (I know this happens when it is dark in the tank but the light had been on for two hours, so this was unusual). I then watched as he flipped onto his back and laid on the bottom of the tank. I got nervous he was dying so I walked over to the tank in a rush and when I put my face closer he sprang back to life and swam all of the tank. Everytime he slowed down he went onto his side and fell to the rocks and seemed like he was giving up, he was also breathing very fast and looked like he was in pain. I have heard of dropsy before and after looking on a ton of forums I decided to euthanize him (sadly) because of how sick he already looked.

Skip to 6 hours later I went to feed the fish and noticed one was hiding inside the pirate ship and would not come out. I shone a light to make sure he was not also on his back and I noticed his eyes looked like they were going to pop right out and were very blurry. I was pretty worried and after doing more research I decided it was probably his time to go as well.

Now skip to present time - I just completed a 60% water change out of fear the tank was dirty or the water was infected. I took out all decorations and plants and cleaned them really well. I did not change the filter. The other 3 fish seem fine right now and are actively chasing each other (they do this for fun and always have). My snail is gliding all over the tank and lapping the whole thing in under 2 minutes, so I know my snail is also feeling fine.

My main concern is that the other fish will now develop dropsy and I will not be able to introduce more tetras into the "infected" water.

Please help! I am desperate to know if there is something I can do to make sure the other fish stay

 

[charliebankston]

You can add some bacteria killer to the tank like melafix or a sulpha medication. Neither will cure illness, but they do a fair job of preventing or slowing the spread of harmful bacteria in the water column

 

[kjace_fish]

Is the water the culprit here? Asking because I have a feeling that all the fish will die of this and since I have my mystery snail I do not want to have to do a 100% water change and re-cycle before getting new fish.

 

[charliebankston]

I'm sure your tank is cycled fine. But the bacteria causing those problems lives in the water. You might never have another problem, but the issue with bacterial infections is that by the time we can see them/symptoms, it's generally too late and hard to cure

 

[kjace_fish]

Thank you for your helpful comments,

I have now added in melafix to the tank and will keep doing that for the next week as directed.

Will update if any more fish show signs or symptoms of infection.

 

[charliebankston]

Awesome! Good luck!