I have had my Betta for a few months and he is the best! He has always seemed healthy until just a little while ago when I noticed a red spot on the bottom part of his mouth. It seems to be growing and upon closer inspection it is on the inside of his mouth too. It doesn’t seem he can close his mouth all the way. I can’t find anything on the internet about a disease like this and I’m kinda freaking out as I fear it is getting worse. It happened so suddenly! I took some pictures. Please, if anyone has any idea what is going on, I would surely appreciate your help!
It mostly seems like an injury. It may be caused due to gravel, or plastic plants. The betta have habit of going in places he shouldnt and mine does that everytime. He tries to go between the gravel to scavenge for leftover food. Similar behavior may have cause your betta the injury. Maybe one sharp end od gravel did this. As a precaution keep water clean and pristine and gravel vac daily until healed.
Thank you for your replay. That does seem to be the case, as he was exploring the bottom last night. It hasn’t gotten any worse and doesn’t seem to be affecting his behavior. He can still eat so that’s good. I’ll keep an eye on him and make sure the water is clean. Thank you!
Keep parameters good, keep the water clean and if he is t healing within a week start with some mebromin or neoplex swabs maybe a bath, I will go into more detail if you need it. For now just keep us updated and let us know if anything gets worse.
Oh gosh, my poor baby he was getting better. His mouth was healing, nothing to worry about really. I’m going away for the weekend, and I wanted to have the tank all cleaned up, so I took him and all of the other critters out of the tank to clean it up really good. I had my Betta and the snails in a glass jar while I cleaned and he seemed fine, but I needed to acclimate them back to the tank so I transferred them into a plastic measuring cup that could float. When I checked up on them a few minutes later his mouth was swollen worse than it had been before and he looks like he is in pain. Must have his his mouth on the bottom of the cup or something. And he was already stressed from being moved I feel terrible! He’s having trouble eating, so I crushed up his food. I’m so upset that this happened again and this time pretty much my fault! I’m sure it will heal, but for now it’s just terrible! Poor thing Well, I checked up on him again just now and he was attacking the bottom of the cup so I suppose he will be alright. But I’m sure he is in pain. I was going to the pet store tomorrow anyway, so my question is are there any sort of drops or first aid type things that could help in this situation? Or anything else I could pick up that can help? Or should I just leave it be and just keep an eye on him? I do have snails in shrimp in with him too, so I’d probably have to keep that in mind before putting any type of medicine in there. Edit: Just put him back in the tank, he’s doing fine, swimming around, still curious about everything. I gave him some blood worms and he is eating, though selecting the smaller pieces, as he is having a little trouble. I’ll wait and see how he’s doing tomorrow.
Since it seems he got injured, there is no medicine for that, medicine is usually reserved for parasites and fungus, things like that. But what you can do is keep the water clean, add stress coat for help of prevention of any opportunistic parasites, add aquarium salt because that helps with healing, and add an almond leaf because it releases benificial tannins into the water that is good for betta's health in general as well as healing. Make sure to keep water temp stable and try to remove anything that could cause stress for him. Quarantine him. Besides that I do not know how else you can help him, just hope I suppose. Hope this helps and I hope he gets better : )
There actually is medicine for wounds, I agree with keeping water clean and IAL you know the drill with that but as far as helping inflammation and protection against infection I recommend some neoplex baths, neomycin has a very special antibacterial and healing trait it is in neosporin which as you may know helps heal cuts and wounds so well even humans use it. I anlso recommend Wound Control product which is mebromin, it can be swabbed on the affected area. RES-Q is great at creating a sort of antibacterial band aid for fish baths in it will help dramatically. If you are interested I’ll leave you some links, most of these meds are very gentle as they promote healing as opposed to killing infections.
Thanks so much for the helpful advice guys! I’ll be sure to look for those things when I’m at the store tomorrow, and yes, links would be help, thank you! He’s doing alright now, he’s eaten all of his food and is looking for more. He really worried me there at first because when I first noticed the wound and gave him food to see if he could eat, he just looked at me and sat at the bottom, I knew he was in pain. I’ll get him what I can at the store and treat him before I go.
Links for meds: Wound control Res-Q Neoplex https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B018...ds=neoplex&dpPl=1&dpID=51k9AapDEuL&ref=plSrch I also recommend some stressguard although it’s similar to Res-Q https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B000...tressguard&dpPl=1&dpID=31qAgeM3OsL&ref=plSrch These are all good meds and will absolutely help out your little friend with his swelling and prevent this from turning to cotton mouth or something fatal.
I’m back from my trip, and I wish I had good news. When I got home my Betta seemed fine, it looked like he was getting better. I had gotten some melafix and stress coat and treated the water before I left. All of the critters in the tank seemed to like it, even the shrimp were more active after putting it in. I treated the water again when I got home because you are supposed to treat with melafix for 7 days, though I missed a day because I was away. And yeah, I did take the carbon filter out before treating. I put cotton in the filter so there would still be filtration. (I have two filters, a small 3 gal air powered filter, and a homemade sponge filter which has cotton and lava rocks in it. Both do the trick) anyway I went ahead and put some more stress coat in there too, wasnt planning on doing that a lot but I figured it would help. The water got a little cloudy, and I figured it might be because of the stress coat. Then I fell asleep. I woke up a little bit ago having been alseep for many hours as it is now 4 in the morning. I couldn’t find my Betta. Shrimp and snails seem fine, and I figured he was probably asleep. But I still wanted to find him. I put the net in the tank and bumped the rock cave to see if he was in there if he would come out. And he was in there, I saw him move and slowly come out. He stayed at the back of the tank. I thought he was tired at first, because he just stayed in one place. But to check, I put some food in the tank where he could see it. He swam forward a little and looked at me, not going for the food. That’s not like him at all! But that’s when I noticed that on of his eyes was bulging out more than the other, and his mouth looked a bit more jutted out. Oh no. After this, he didn’t eat, he just went back into the cave and hid again. He never hides in the cave. Ever. Every once in a while he swims through it, but that’s it. Never hides in it. Now I know he is sick. I’m thinking popeye. Melafix is supposed to treat that. But it came it came on after I put it in. Unless it was already there and is just now showing. Idk if the swollen mouth has something to do with that or if it came on because of it somehow. Pop eye is supposed to be caused by dirty water, but I did a full tank cleaning before I left. It may be due to injury, but now I’m just not sure. In other cases, it might be a result of a much more serious illness. Does anyone here have any experience with this? I don’t want to lose my fishy he’s the best fish I’ve ever had. I’d post a picture but he is hiding now. Additionally, I plan on giving him an epsom salt bath here soon.
Epsom bath isn’t necessary, melafix should never be used with insufficient mineral cations (gh over 100ppm, kh over 75ppm) and you should never do a complete 100% water change when a fish is sick because it can put them in shock and make them more susceptible to further infection. Melafix is for mild bacterial infection which he doesn’t have. You need to get some of the products I recommended and let him be with regular water changes and warm temps, adding stressguard every day. You can’t do anything until you get the proper medications needed for his treatment. I doubt he has popeye I think he is just in shock due to the fact that he is a labrinth fish and melafix is quite strong, stay calm and continue your regular schedule until you have the right meds to heal him.
I never did a 100% water change. I took about about 30% of the water and kept the critters in that water while I used the gravel vacuum to remove the build up of junk on the bottom, as I had only just gotten the second, stronger filter. Before I just had the sponge filter which didn’t pick up the debris. That’s why I got the other filter, and then I did the tank cleaning to remove the debris and wipe down the glass, as well as clean the ornaments. I left the filters alone. After that I put back the old water that I’d kept the fish in. On top of that, my Betta wasn’t sick then. He had hurt his mouth more than a week before, yes, but it was almost healed, and of little concern at that point. The concern only started when I noticed his mouth had been damaged again, which happened after the water change. But the water change was because I was going away, and because I wanted to make sure that the bottom was clean. Epsom salt baths help with swelling and inflammation, which he has still in his mouth and now in his eye, which may or may not be popeye, either way it does help, so I believe it is necessary. I had wanted to do it before, but couldn’t because I was going away. I got the melafix because it also treats wounds, which he does have on the inside of his mouth (still not sure how, but it’s much worse on the inside) as well as to prevent infection. I did research it before I got it, and saw that is was natural and safe for snails and shrimp. Your suggestions and links were good, and I do appreciate it, but I was going away, and only had time to go to the local pet store to get something that could help and give me peace of mind while I was away. The store didn’t have those things but did have other things that I thought could help. I just wanted to get something that would reduce stress and help with wounds, which I got. Then when I got back I’d see how things were and go from there. And upon returning all was well. Even after I treated the water again all was well for quite a while, then the water became a little cloudy. That’s when I put the cotton in the filter, to help filter out what might have been causing it, which I presumed to be due to the excess stress coat, as I had read that too much might cause cloudiness. I’d also read that it can get caught in the filter, hence the cotton in hopes to filter it out. And it seems to have worked, as it has cleared up. Now since I have turned off the aquarium light he has come out, but he is very allusive, staying at the back of the tank and laying at the bottom. He’s really not looking too good. I suppose I should withhold further treatment with melafix until I see how he does. I will further look into the products you talked about. And see about what I can get my hands on. At this point, I’m just really tired (from trip) and want to not have to worry about this anymore.
Careful, melafix at full dosage can kill labyrinth fish, including betas. Discussion about MelaFix and bettas
Quick update: It’s been a few hours now. He is out and about, and doesn’t look as sickly as he was looking a little bit ago. A bit skittish, but I did get him to eat. I turned the lift back on and it doesn’t seem to bother him. I also took some pictures which was hard because he was being camera shy. The picture aren’t great but I hope they help. Upon closer inspection, I notcied that his swollen eye was slightly clouded. I really don’t know if this is popeye or not.
