My poor betta girl died from what I found out was dropsy. Two questions: 1.) Can it hurt me if I wear gloves while cleaning out the tank? 2.) Is it contagious to other fish? Can I clean it out really well and let it sit for a few months, then get more fish? Thanks!
Dropsey is more of a symptom than a disease. The swelling is caused by kidney failure. So it won't hurt you and isn't necessarilly contagious to other fish, although the cause of the kidney failure may be. Usually the stress of poor water can be an issue. So I would make sure to test your water. If you are like most betta owners and clean the whole bowl out than that might be part of the problem. You could be keeping your tank too clean.
What Livinzoo said. Some causes of dropsy are contagious (to fish, not generally to humans) but quite often the cause is not really a disease so much as it is just stress or poor water quality or insufficient warmth. So the main thing to do is to take a hard look at how you're keeping the fish and see what you can do to improve it (no matter what some Petsmart employee or website somewhere may TELL you is 'perfectly ok' ) Good luck, sorry 'bout your fish, Pat
