Saying Goodbye is Hard To Do...

...unless it's a pet fish that repulses you.

Last year for my birthday Chris got me a fishtank. We had quite a few that lasted a long time, but some died over the past 12 months, possibly due to our inexperience of running a proper tank.

Here is a normal Mickey Platy:

Here is what our looked liked before it died:

Our last Mickey was bloated and scales sticking up like he was all punk rock. Alas, he was not punk rock, but it was the dropsy. Dropsy isn't a disease, but a condition caused by a bacterial infection. It's also really really gross to look at.


This Mickey liked to hang around in our little sunken pirate boat, which was probably where all the rotting vegetation and other fun stuff got trapped. So that caused a bacterical infection, which let to the dropsical conditions.

"This disease is characterized by a swollen or hollow abdomen (Ascites). A concentration of fluid in the body tissues and cavities causes the fish's abdomen to become swollen and appear bloated. Swollen areas may exhibit a 'pine-cone' appearance caused by the fish's scales sticking out. You can best see this by viewing your fish from the top. Fish may also stop feeding, appear off-color, become listless and/or lethargic, have sunken eyes, and hang at the top or stay at the bottom of the aquarium. The condition affects the fish's internal organs, ceasing proper function."

So we noticed it last weekend, decided to separate he fish from the others. I checked on lots of fish care boards and it sounded like without antibiotics, Dropsy is usually fatal, and even with antibiotics prognosis is not good. One of the only humane ways to kill a fish is to chop it's head off, or inject it with certain medications, and I wasn't about to do that. I mean, it was a nice fish, but it only cost us like $2.00.

And this is going to sound worse, but just looking at the fish made me want to throw up. I've been through some gnarly stuff with my cats [infections and face drains and sicknesses], but this damn fish and it's dropsy made me so sick to my stomach to look at. But I couldn't stop staring it! And staring at other photos of fish with dropsy.

So for your sick viewing pleasure, I present more photos of our fish with dropsy. [click for larger photos]

There's that weird "pineconing" they were talking about. Gross.

Dropsy the fish, R.I.P.


dropsy the disease - I definitely do not dedicate this post to you.