Betta has popeye - treatment questions

I'm back. Sorry, but I have a stray cat that I've made a cozy shelter for and I take her room service twice a day, lol. We've had sleet, snow, and freezing temps for days, and she's snug as a bug.

I'd take her in, but I have two dogs, four cats, and lots of other living things in this house. I'm trying to find her a good home, because it seems that she was someone's lost pet.

Anyway, I think Betta Fix is just a diluted version of Melafix, which is not the same as Betta Revive. I sure wish the petstores had that for you, but I'd check Walmart, too. Sometimes they have things in the pet section you wouldn't expect.

You can certainly soak the medicated pellets in garlic juice, in fact that's what I soak other food pellets, veggie sticks, shrimp sticks, and flake in, and just enough liquid that it is fully absorbed.

I should have been more detailed about soaking the food. I agree, if you float their food in more liquid than the food can absorb you're losing too much of the nutrients... kinda like boiling broccoli, you lose too much of the good stuff in the water.
 
Great thinking BFM... that's an easy way to get the juice out of a pod of garlic. I have bought the minced/chopped garlic in a jar at the grocery store, but I really think fresh garlic is better. I've used the liquid from that jar and it doesn't seem to be as tasty to my fish as fresh squeezed... prima donnas, lol.

Addendum: Saje, you may have a good garlic juice that you've found. I've never seen garlic juice in the store, only the jar full of chopped/minced garlic with the liquid in the jar with it. I'd be interested in finding just good garlic juice. I imagine the health food stores might even have that; I never thought of looking for it there.
 
Chickadee, get more pics of him if you can. As close up as possible.

I wish I knew how to tell you to make a good equivilent of Betta Revive with mixing up the ingredients yourself. Here's the ingredients. I found this on the Petco online site.

Hikari Betta Revive Health Aid
2.5 mL
SKU: 1028944
Ingredients: Water, neomycin sulfate (<10%), methylene blue (<0.5%), proprietary polymer mixture, buffers, EDTA, malachite green chloride (<0.01%), cyanocobalamin and electrolytes.

You could get most of those ingredients, but I couldn't tell you with confidence how to achieve those concentrations.
 
Keep on the lookout for Betta Revive. Call around to Walmart, Target, any place that might have a pet department. It's not that I think this is a miracle cure, but it sure has helped in many cases, and I think it would help him feel better, at the least.

The only thing to do for now is watch him closely for any other signs or symptoms that will help us narrow down the problem he's having; we need to come up with a diagnosis to be able to choose the right med for him; I don't like to just use the shotgun approach unless he takes a turn for the worse.

I think feeding him the medicated food will not hurt him and may certainly address an infection that may be simmering unseen.

I'm thinking out loud: Up until the temperature swing he was healthy and thriving, so I don't think your ph/gh/kh are to blame for his difficulties, and I know you have an excellent routine of keeping his water parameters in excellent condition.

There are no visible signs of bacterial infection, other than the popeye which is better...... Is his eye completely back to normal?

Have you seen him poo, and does it look normal?

I'll check back in the morning to see how he's doing. I hope he is better soon. I know if feels awful to have a sick fish, especially a Betta; they are such loveable little characters. Keep your chin up, we're all pulling for him, and you.
 
Mel, the kitty is very lucky to have found you. Crazy weather, eh? It's normal and expected around here, but I feel for the areas that don't have the equipment to handle it. Spring can't get here soon enough.

About the poop, I noticed a large amount hanging from him the day after I fed him pea last weekend. I rarely ever notice him pooping though so I don't know what's normal or not. Yes, his eyes look normal to me. No bulging or cloudiness anymore.

He seems slightly better today. He's moving around more instead of just hanging under the surface. I tried to get some pics but he hides when he sees the camera. Will try later. I gave him another medicated pellet. Will call around on the Betta Revive but I'm not hopeful. Our Target doesn't carry any fish stuff at all. Our Walmart doesn't carry live fish anymore but they do have some supplies. I called and asked for the "pet department" (said loosely) and they didn't come to the phone. There's not a lot of options around here. I can order it online and see if they'll overnight it.
 
It does sound like he's improving. I would continue the medicated pellet soaked in just enough garlic juice to be absorbed. As much garlic as you can get in him could help with internal parasites, if that's a factor.

I would get the Betta Revive if you have to get it overnighted, yikes on the cost of that. Lacking other symptoms that indicate the need for more aggressive measures, I think Betta Revive is the best option right now.

As long as the local stores have good availability of antibiotics such as, Kanaplex (kanamycin), Maracyn 1 and Maracyn 2, Furan 2, BiNox, even Jungle Labs Fungus Clear is pretty good.

I esecially like Kanaplex and it's pretty inexpensive, compared to some. If you thought you might want that one and you think you might not be able to find that locally you might get that at the same time as the Betta Revive, just to have on hand in case needed. It should not add to the expense of overnighting since it's a small tube type bottle about like a lipstick tube, usually.

Having used the Maracyn Plus for less than the recommended time period, I think I'd be reluctant to try to rely on that one if bacterial infection becomes apparent; there could be some resistance to that one at this point.

It sounds like his poo is normal; you'd be seeing long stringy, filmy, white-ish or clear-ish poo if there was a significant internal parasite issue.

Garlic will be good for him in any case to help with some types of parasites; he could have a subclinical level of parasitic infestation, and a hit to the immune system often precipitates onset of illness due to proliferation of a parasite that was being held at bay, so to speak, by the healthy immune system of the fish.

No messy poo and no swollen tummy are good signs that this is not a problem right now.

Keep us posted.
 
Last edited:
Betta Revive is a 3 or 4 dollar item (in Canada, so US would prob be cheaper), so overnighting it would be ridiculous in cost!

sounds like there is some improvement. i personally would keep up on the daily water changes and keep feeding the medicated food and keep activity/bustle around the tank to as much of a minimum as possible, so that he can come out of his 'skittish' phase. order the Revive with regular shipping and just keep it on hand for future use.

read back about using garlic juice only on medicated food and no, you can use it on any food. i've even soaked flakes in garlic juice just to give my finkids a lil different flavour to their food, just for the heck of it.
 
...I am learning daily from all you fish moms about natural remedies, such as garlic.

Would you suggest soaking the flake food for a perfectly healthy gang once a week to get a few more vitamins into them?
 
I do agree with BFM on the reasonableness of regular shipping on the Betta Revive, after thinking about it. He is doing fairly well, and in view of the cost of overnight shipping, as long as he doesn't appear to be losing ground he will probably be fine without it right away, but I would go ahead and order it to have on hand.

You're doing well with the daily water changes, and, if possible, feed him the medicated food only for a while. I know it must taste like crap, but the garlic helps make it tastier. The only thing I would add, food-wise, is once a week give him the garlicky nuked english pea, as you have done already a couple of days ago.

On the garlic, I soak everything in it, from veggie and shrimp pellets, to flake, blood worms and, of course, medicated food. I've gotten flake from kensfish.com that has garlic in it. You can also get flake with the active component of garlic, allicin, in it and not have the nice smelly effect of whole garlic, though the fish love the smell, so it seems. :)
 
Sigrid said:
...I am learning daily from all you fish moms about natural remedies, such as garlic.

Would you suggest soaking the flake food for a perfectly healthy gang once a week to get a few more vitamins into them?
Click to expand...

I personally don't think you can give them too much garlic soaked food.
I know one of our AC members that sells wild caught and tank raised fish here, and she regularly feeds all of them flake with garlic in it, and I think in some of her own homemade fish and invert food.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
AquariaCentral.com
Top Bottom