I need some help on deciding how to go forward with this fish

So.... it happened again. I “rescued” a betta. (In my defense, the store gave him to me for free and they felt terrible about how bad of a condition he was in). I just couldn’t leave him there.
So anyways, I ended up bringing home a betta with no eyes. That’s right.... both of his eyes have fallen out. His eye sockets are fairly bulgy, suggesting he possibly had a terrible case of popeye. But no eyes. He is also extremely thin (probably because he can’t see his food). So, now I have a fish with no eyes that is extremely emaciated.
Does anybody know how I should proceed with this? I really want to help him out, but I don’t know how.
I’ve heard of people tapping the glass before the fish is fed, but that only worked in cases where the fish was going blind (and could still see a little bit). This fish clearly can’t see.
I would really appreciate any ideas you guys have, I really want to help this fish.

 

The only way is to help it out of its missery to me.

 

The only way is to help it out of its missery to me.

I thought about that, and if it comes down to it I will. I just feel like I need to try to do something to help it. He acts like nothing is wrong— he swims around and acts like a normal betta. You would never know he had no eyes from the way he acts. I respect your opinion, but just judging by how he acts/his personality, I’m not ready to put him down yet.

 

You could either put him out of his misery or try to handfeed him and kinda touch the food to his mouth (I don’t have blind betta but I have some betta that have become more interested in food once I started handfeeding)

 

You could either put him out of his misery or try to handfeed him and kinda touch the food to his mouth (I don’t have blind betta but I have some betta that have become more interested in food once I started handfeeding)

I will try the hand feeding. As I stated earlier, I am not going to put him down yet just because of how he acts like a normal fish. It is possible that the pet store doesn’t feed their fish to avoid water contamination, because there was no food in the bottom of any of the cups (and no poop either). Maybe he has just been there a while and hasn’t eaten. Honestly, I’ve seen more emaciated bettas before.
I didn’t even think about hand feeding, but that is a good idea. I’ll try it and see what happens

 

Even if he's missing both eyes he shouldn't have a problem living a normal life. You can use a pipette to directly feed him and he'll eventually understand that food comes to him. Soaking the food in garlic extract also helps entice him to eat so that he knows it's food.

 

I agree with Repolie, he should be able to live his life by relying more on his other senses. While a betta’s sense of smell isn't that great distance-whise, dropping some food in next to his head should work. He can also use his lateral line to ‘feel’ where you put in the food by sensing small changes in the water current.

Good luck with your new friend and thank you for saving this little guy’s life! <3

 

I would definitely try using a pencil or chopstick or something like that to gently tap the surface of the water like a bug would if the betta was in the wild. The betta should be able to feel the vibrations and will instinctively know to come to the surface to eat.

 

Speaking of vibrations, you could potentially look into live food, like something that'd wiggle so he could sense it better?

 

bettas respond really well to movement of the water surface, and they're very smart fish so I think that if you teach him that food is where the water moves he will be completely fine. by the way, thank you for taking him. it's a very nice thing to do, and I'm sure you will give him the best life he could possibly have. good luck with this sweet boy

 

bettas respond really well to movement of the water surface, and they're very smart fish so I think that if you teach him that food is where the water moves he will be completely fine. by the way, thank you for taking him. it's a very nice thing to do, and I'm sure you will give him the best life he could possibly have. good luck with this sweet boy

Thank you so much!

 

I've kept blind cave fish in a community tank [150 gallon] and they did ok. I overfed a bit to make sure they got enough to eat but aside from that they were troublefree. They never even seemed to run into the glass which I could never figure out. As an only fish in the tank he should be fine as lone as there's no infections.

 

Great news! I got a pair of tweezers and used them to dangle a frozen bloodworm in front of the betta’s face. I gently touched his mouth with the end of the bloodworm and he attacked it. Realizing it was food, he came back and ate it. He had 2 bloodworms before he decided to stop eating. This is very exciting, I hope we continue to move in the right direction. I have a 5.5 gallon tank that he is going to live in once he masters eating out of the tweezers and I can be sure he doesn’t have any diseases. I’m so proud of this little boy and I’m glad that I was able to take him home

 

So.... it happened again. I “rescued” a betta. (In my defense, the store gave him to me for free and they felt terrible about how bad of a condition he was in). I just couldn’t leave him there.
So anyways, I ended up bringing home a betta with no eyes. That’s right.... both of his eyes have fallen out. His eye sockets are fairly bulgy, suggesting he possibly had a terrible case of popeye. But no eyes. He is also extremely thin (probably because he can’t see his food). So, now I have a fish with no eyes that is extremely emaciated.
Does anybody know how I should proceed with this? I really want to help him out, but I don’t know how.
I’ve heard of people tapping the glass before the fish is fed, but that only worked in cases where the fish was going blind (and could still see a little bit). This fish clearly can’t see.
I would really appreciate any ideas you guys have, I really want to help this fish.

That’s great you rescued him! I’ve had fish in the past that had a hard time eating. I would scoop them out (gently) with their old betta cup and feed them in the cup. Then put them back in the tank. It only took 5 min tops and did not seem to stress them. They also learned that the cup=food and got used to it. Plus the smaller space makes it easier to feed and monitor how much they are eating. Hope this idea helped!

 

Great job saving him. I would even look into setting up a small shelf with suction cups where you can soak a pellet or two or drop blood worms like you've fed already and let it drop on the shelf for him to come and eat then lounge on the shelf.

 

I've kept blind cave fish in a community tank [150 gallon] and they did ok. I overfed a bit to make sure they got enough to eat but aside from that they were troublefree. They never even seemed to run into the glass which I could never figure out. As an only fish in the tank he should be fine as lone as there's no infections.

But blind cave fish are a completely different thing to me. Not comparable at all.

Also OP mentioned the fish is extremely thin. That is what my post was based on.
A very thin fish without eyesight isn't "doing well" to me.

 

That’s great you rescued him! I’ve had fish in the past that had a hard time eating. I would scoop them out (gently) with their old betta cup and feed them in the cup. Then put them back in the tank. It only took 5 min tops and did not seem to stress them. They also learned that the cup=food and got used to it. Plus the smaller space makes it easier to feed and monitor how much they are eating. Hope this idea helped!

I’ll try this. This way uneaten food won’t foul the water, which is a huge plus. Thanks for this idea!

 

Great job saving him. I would even look into setting up a small shelf with suction cups where you can soak a pellet or two or drop blood worms like you've fed already and let it drop on the shelf for him to come and eat then lounge on the shelf.

This is a great idea! I’ll have to try it!

 

I had a betta who as completely blind as well, I feed all my bettas with tweezers and for him I would knock the tweezers on the rI'm of the tank a few times to make some noise and once he would come up to investigate. I would touch his nose with said food and he’d take it. Frozen Bloodworms seemed to be the easiest to feed him as sometimes the little wormy juices would leech out and he could smell them right in front of his face.

 

But blind cave fish are a completely different thing to me. Not comparable at all.

Also OP mentioned the fish is extremely thin. That is what my post was based on.
A very thin fish without eyesight isn't "doing well" to me.

Very true but this is a fish that was surely dieing at the store. It was thin when he got him. If the fish is eating even with assistance of the op there's a good chance it can survive long enough till it adapts to finding food it can't see.

 

When we moved into this house my wife got a new betta. It was really cool ruffled looking fins/tail that looked like a can can dancer's skirts and has blue chrome eyes.
Well I'm never going back to the fish store again. They should not be selling diamond eye bettas. Those cool blue chrome eyes mean that its scales have grown over its eyes and it is blind. A very cool look no one should breed for or sell.
The fish lived a mostly happy life (my wife melted it with nitrates once) and the only thing was we tapped the water surface before feeding it. It died after 5-6 years a big old hump backed betta.

Someone mentioned the blind cave fish. You could set up a blind tank and just keep adopting blind bettas from the store. I'm guessing blind males get along fine together?

 

I wouldn’t add more than one male even if they are blind, they can sense the hormones other males produce if they are in the same tank. This is also why divided tanks with several bettas make the fish more stressed, even if they can't see each other.

 

When we moved into this house my wife got a new betta. It was really cool ruffled looking fins/tail that looked like a can can dancer's skirts and has blue chrome eyes.
Well I'm never going back to the fish store again. They should not be selling diamond eye bettas. Those cool blue chrome eyes mean that its scales have grown over its eyes and it is blind. A very cool look no one should breed for or sell.
The fish lived a mostly happy life (my wife melted it with nitrates once) and the only thing was we tapped the water surface before feeding it. It died after 5-6 years a big old hump backed betta.

Someone mentioned the blind cave fish. You could set up a blind tank and just keep adopting blind bettas from the store. I'm guessing blind males get along fine together?

5-6 years is a great life span for any betta.... much less a blind fish! Great job, it sounds like you took great care of him/her.
I’m sure you could probably keep blind fish together, however I would not risk doing it. In my case (where the fish doesn’t have eyes) he might get stressed out knowing that other fish are around but not being able to actually see them/ defend himself against them. A betta that still has eyes/ scales that grew over their eyes they can probably still see a little bit and could pick fights with other bettas.
Besides, it’s not very often I come across fish in this poor of a condition, my local pet store usually keeps their bettas in fairly good condition. That being said, I’m not sure I’d find many blind fish lol.
Although it would be cool to have a [blind] male betta tank, I’m not going to risk it

 

How long can you feed frozen bloodworms for before it becomes unhealthy (if it even does)? I’m only wondering because It’s probably going to take some time to “tweezer train” him and frozen bloodworms are the easiest to work with in terms of picking them up and feeding them to him. Once he learns that when something gently touches his mouth it is food then I can start using pellets or flakes. So, is it fine for bettas to eat frozen bloodworms for ~a week straight?
As a side note, I want to try to get a little more muscle/fat onto him since he is fairly thin. Are bloodworms and other frozen foods good for helping him to get bigger faster?

 

Bloodworms are a good food source for your fish, but variety is always helpful. Dropping flakes near him will probably trigger a feeding response, and he'll eventually find the food.Not sure if they can smell the food but can usually sense a disturbance on the water.

 

Following to see the adventures of your blind fish! Kudos to you for rescuing him! Seems to be doing well so far!

 

How long can you feed frozen bloodworms for before it becomes unhealthy (if it even does)? I’m only wondering because It’s probably going to take some time to “tweezer train” him and frozen bloodworms are the easiest to work with in terms of picking them up and feeding them to him. Once he learns that when something gently touches his mouth it is food then I can start using pellets or flakes. So, is it fine for bettas to eat frozen bloodworms for ~a week straight?
As a side note, I want to try to get a little more muscle/fat onto him since he is fairly thin. Are bloodworms and other frozen foods good for helping him to get bigger faster?

I’ve read that always feeding blood worms doesn’t have enough nutritional value. I like to feed blood worms, pellets, and daphnia evenly.

 

How long can you feed frozen bloodworms for before it becomes unhealthy (if it even does)? I’m only wondering because It’s probably going to take some time to “tweezer train” him and frozen bloodworms are the easiest to work with in terms of picking them up and feeding them to him. Once he learns that when something gently touches his mouth it is food then I can start using pellets or flakes. So, is it fine for bettas to eat frozen bloodworms for ~a week straight?
As a side note, I want to try to get a little more muscle/fat onto him since he is fairly thin. Are bloodworms and other frozen foods good for helping him to get bigger faster?

Also, I found that feeding more pellets fattened my guys up when they needed it. Probably because the pellets do have some fillers (that’s why I only feed pellets as 1/3 of my food options).

 

Update: I got him to eat 3 flakes today. I had them in a cup of water so that they got water-logged and then I used the tweezers to feed the flakes to him. It took a couple of tries (since flakes probably don’t smell as good as the bloodworms) but he eventually took it. Yay!!!

 

I have a partially blind betta I lessen the water surface agitation for him to know that something was dropped in his tank because I know that even in complete darkness they can still sense everything around them except when the filter motor is very strong that it some what hinders their sense because of the vibrations it creates inside the tank. I also help the poor guy by blowing gently the floating pellets towards his face to let him know that there's food within reach, yeah it takes time to feed a blind fish but very uplifting when one by one they can catch some foods I totally shout from joy when he did catches some pellets. Hope that the chance you give to him will pay off even if we know that someday you'll have to do the sad part for his affliction to end.

 

The eyeless fish has officially been tweezer trained! He gets so excited whenever it’s feeding time and he always swims right up to his feeding corner. I can’t possibly express how good it feels to be able to give this little guy a second chance. He is one of the most inquisitive fish I’ve ever owned and he always brings a smile to my face.
Here’s a couple pictures of him! (His water isn’t dirty, it’s just dark because of the Indian almond leaf in there)

 

The eyeless fish has officially been tweezer trained! He gets so excited whenever it’s feeding time and he always swims right up to his feeding corner. I can’t possibly express how good it feels to be able to give this little guy a second chance. He is one of the most inquisitive fish I’ve ever owned and he always brings a smile to my face.
Here’s a couple pictures of him! (His water isn’t dirty, it’s just dark because of the Indian almond leaf in there)
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He looks so dorky, I absolutely love him. I'm also incredibly glad to hear he's doing good! you're an awesome person for taking him in and I hope you'll have a long good time with him

 

He looks so dorky, I absolutely love him. I'm also incredibly glad to hear he's doing good! you're an awesome person for taking him in and I hope you'll have a long good time with him

Thank you so much! I really appreciate you saying that!

 

Just found this thread and I'm loving it! Gonna try to tweezer feed my female baby betta when she's a little bigger

 

I'm a bad person.
I see those huge growths and I want to find tiny googly eyes, replace the air in them with water, see if they have neutral buoyancy after that, and if so crazy clue them in place. I gave him back his dignity!.. wait, no I didn't.