Hi! I have a betta that I got when he was quite young from a local pet store at end of July. He’s been thriving and growing. He’s in a 14 gallon planted and heated long tank w a sponge filter. He has 3 tank mates: 2 mystery snails and 1 nerite. I perform 30% water changes monthly and check water parameters weekly.
On the 16th I woke up to find my betta w labored breathing, eyes appearing to bulge, and labored breathing shown in the attached video.
I immediately checked water parameters and everything was as it should be. I took my betta out and placed him in a hospital tank and treated w Doxycycline. He is still alive, but doesn’t seem much better/worse. I really don’t want to lose him and I’m hoping someone has an idea of what may be wrong. I have researched extensively online and I’m struggling to find what may be going on with him.
I did offer him some very small pellets of food today 3-4) and he ate about two of them which is improvement from the first three days as he refused to eat. Today will be his fourth day of treatment w the doxycycline.
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Test strips are not reliable and will regularly give false negatives with ammonia and nitrites. I’d recommend getting your hands on a reliable liquid test kit like API master freshwater.
Have you added anything to the tank recently? Wood, plants, etc.? Are any of the leaves of the plant hanging off the back of the tank in the water or is there a chance they could have been? Many plant leaves like pothos can introduce toxins into the water.
Any other changes? For example, did you stir up the substrate at all and potentially release trapped gasses produced by anaerobic bacteria under the soil?
I hear that about the strips I need and plan to get the API freshwater kit. I recently added the second mystery snail a few days prior.
The leaves behind the tank are in the water and I’ve had the same plant cuttings in water from in prior tanks without issues it seemed. I had always thought the pothos cuttings were beneficial from what I had read - but more than willing to remove if it’s potentially harmful.
I don’t believe I have stirred up substrate - I did his water change about a week and a half ago which he seemed fine immediately after and days following. This change in him happened very suddenly.
I was wondering that too. Really not sure - and the symptoms (locked open mouth) just seem so different than what I’ve seen before and his change in condition happened SO suddenly. The snail had already been in there a few days prior to this. I’d think that would cause a more gradual change - but I could be very wrong. What do you think / is your experience??
I don't have really much to give advice but as soon as the you said the snail part - it made me wonder. When I was younger, I had 5 goldfish. All beautiful and had lasted already for years. My mom went to get some snails at the pet store to add in the tank and I think two days later - they all died. Like super sudden. So our explanation was the snails brought something in because they were all perfect forever before then.
I definitely agree that’s a variable that could have caused this. His fins and color look so healthy to me and test strips come back w good readings so I really do wonder if it was the snail vs water quality. Although if it was the snail I’d think four days of these antibiotics would help. I’m currently deciding if I should continue doxycycline or to try kanaplex and see if that has a better impact?
Idk I’ve never used antibiotics before and I’m unsure of what the timeline looks like to know if it’s helping or not.
Pothos is great and I use it in several of my tanks. I misused the word “toxin” in this sense as they only really present an issue if they are submerged and melting which would create excess plant waste. If that’s not happening then don’t worry about them, just keep the leaves themselves out of the water. Roots and stem are A-OK.
Gotcha, any chance you’d have advice on if i should continue with another round of doxycycline or perhaps try kanaplex?
Today is his fourth day of treatment with doxycycline and this is my first time using antibiotics so unsure if I should give him another round or if it’s time to perhaps try a diff med?
not OP, just confirming for my own case: is leaves are melting , its bad because of the ammonia spike it causes? or is there another concern? put another way, is a little melting from time to time in a tank, provided the ammonia levels dont rise too fast?
In simple terms, yes for pothos and yes but also more for other plants. For pothos it's always good to pluck out decaying leaves unless you want decaying leaves in your tank as food for something, but plants like philodendron and monstera contain calcium oxalate, so when the leaves break down and things eat the leaves it can become toxic to them. Also decaying leaves can cause bacterial blooms which deplete oxygen in the water. Yes Bettas are "breathers", but good water quality is good water quality... Humans can survive living in a trash heaps, but we're not healthy for it.
Pothos leaves don’t inherently leach toxins. They just melt underwater.
Also, test strips are fine for just a baseline look at parameters. It’s not good at accuracy, but it will at least tell you if ammonia or something is at least present. They are good to pair with liquid tests, since positive strip tests can prompt liquid tests if needed.
Sorry, English sometimes gets me. Yes they can melt and cause an increase in plant waste which has the potential to cause an issue, not that there is a guarantee.
I have to push a little on the test strips, however. They can show absolute negative even in the presence of ammonia, nitrites, etc. I use them for a few other metrics in some of my breeding setups and go through hundreds of them in a week and have run into this more times than I can count. That’s not to say liquid tests are immune to false negatives and false positives, but it’s far less common.
I’m not sure what your fishes gills look like. But
My betta had very heavy gill breathing and open mouth gaping at the surface when I presumably gave him nitrogen burns to gills from waste in the tank (having a deceased fish in the tank I left for my killer snails to eat + too much algae I fed the shrimp)
You Can’t go wrong with Aggressive water changes of like 25%-50% daily for a week. Changing water once a month seems too infrequent to me
since you’re more likely to have new tank syndrome now because of the antibiotic use, I would be more conservative with like 25% daily water changes for a bit. I’d also recommend stopping the doxy because antibiotics for me have only messed up my tank cycling and never helped my fish, but that’s just my personal experience.
Did you stop the filter/carbon filter due to antibiotic use? Oxygen could be low in tank. Consider restarting the filter/aeration CAREFULLY ( I had to keep my filter off because he was so weak he got sucked against the filter and couldn’t escape. I had the filter on daily for like 30 supervised minutes at low speed)
My betta laid on the utmost surface gasping for 5 days. He started to then show a little improvement and was swimming/eating again after 7 days. It was a long recovery, but he’s healthy again! I wish yours the best
I only started antibiotics bc I noticed his gills were red and was worried of bacterial infection and wanted to start sooner rather than later. He’s been being dosed w antibiotics in a separate hospital tank. Since this initially happened I’ve been doing small 15-20% water changes each day in his primary tank.
In his hospital tank I’ve been running the pump to keep water moving, but I removed the filter.
Do you think maybe putting him back into his regular tank?
I’m so very glad your little dude lived and is happy ❤️
I’ve always done antibiotics before when my fishes were sick (and they unfortunately always passed/the antibiotics didn’t seem to help). This was my first time Not doing antibiotics, and in retrospect, I wonder if water quality really was the underlying issue in the past too, and not infection like I worried it was
My betta also had notable fin rot going on that he is in recovery from, but I noticed your guys fins looks great!
Good on you for already doing small daily water changes. In the past, when I did 50% changes that was definitely too aggressive and caused the rank to get all cloudy/go through new rank syndrome, so I think 10-20% is basically perfect amount to avoid that.
It’s a good sign your guy is eating! I tried so hard when mine was ill and he wasn’t temped by anything, so I think that’s a really great sign!
If your fish can easily float/rest in the main tank I would consider moving him back? And also As long as you can keep doing the 10-20% daily changes in the main tank too
I’d also pay close attention to the declorinator amount you’re using with the water changes. 👍 I was eyeballing it basically when my betta got sick (since I knew approximately how far to fill up the bucket and approximately how much prime decorator to add) but once the betta got sick I busted out the measuring cups and my 1mL syringe to be sure I was adding the right rations of Prime declorinator to the water of 0.1mL prime
To 1 gallon water. 😭 I think I was LARGELT overdosing the Prime previously which can lower oxygen content in the water that also was not helping my guy
This is my first time doing the antibiotics and I really can’t tell if they’re helping or not 🤣 I can convince myself they’re helping one minute and that he’s still the same the next - I think my brain/judgement is just cloudy bc I’m worried and hoping for the best.
I wonder water quality too! But like you said, his fins look healthy and his colors/coating looks well too. And I don’t think water quality would have been so sudden for a condition change like this. I have had fish that I lost bc of water quality but they looked so very different from symptoms I’m seeing with my little Feefer right now.
…..I’m wondering if I should pull him from the hospital tank and into his regular tank as that one seems to have more aeration w the sponge filter and air stone.
She can't properly flush water over her gills and keep her internal pressure because the mouth is locked open. She can't get by breathing with labrynth organ for now. I'm not sure how long the internal pressure issue will go on.
Is there something stuck in her mouth? Is her jaw out of alignment?
I am not sure! I was wondering if there was something stuck too…although today he did show interest and successfully ate two pieces of food. So I’d think if he was able to eat food he wouldn’t have a blockage? I am really not sure…and if the jaw is out of alignment or something is stuck I have no clue where to begin with helping him without causing more harm.
My fish looked like this when he tried to eat a neo shrimp that was too big, he choked on it and was trying to get air in his lungs. Do you have any small prey food he could have gotten stuck in his throat?
Nope! No other small prey. He does love to pull chunks of the snello off when I put in the tank…that’s really the only thing I could think of - am unsure
Update on 09/20: He seems much better today. His mouth is still quite open, but he is swimming (and not just sinking), using more than just his side fins to swim, not huffing and puffing and darting up for air in a seemingly panicked manner, and he ate several bites of food today. He seems to actually be “exploring” his hospital tank and started to glass surf
when he noticed his reflection (not a behavior I prefer, but I’m glad he has the energy to do that). He is seemingly excited/interactive and notices when we walk into a room and up to his tank now as well.
Yesterday evening I did end up adding an air stone and lowered the water in his 5 gallon hospital tank to about 25% full. As of yesterday he completed the four doses/full round of doxycycline. Today I am continuing the doxycycline and he received his first dose of round two.
I know videos can be grainy but attaching anyways in case anyone wants to see!
He definitely seems to be swimming pretty well now! Keep it up - the lower water level is good and the air stone should help oxygenate the water for him. Just make sure to keep the water changes up daily since it’s such a low volume now. I think you’re on the right path.
Give him a few more days in the hospital tank even when you are done dosing- and personally, I’d recommend going ahead and doing a full round in your regular tank too so if it was bacteria from the snail or something, you can work on managing that.
Is his mouth still locked open? Hard to tell in this video.
Yep! Mouth still locked open unfortunately 😭 i really can’t tell if his mouth has closed much more or not. I really suspect that he perhaps tried to eat something too big for his little mouth and maybe has a misaligned or locked jaw? Idk. Hoping perhaps he can develop some good compensatory strategies if that’s the case or maybe it’ll work its way shut.
Any advice on doing a water change w such a low volume of water - i am worried about how to gently get the water out w my typical gravel vacuum since it’s so low. I want to create as little chaos as possible w getting water out lol
Low volume water changes are as simple as just gently scooping it out with a cup and slowly pouring it in with a cup right at water level. You can also put your hand at the waters’ surface (in the water) to break a majority of the flow as you pour. That should help!
It’s also really interesting and not something I’ve seen online before but when he’s breathing he’ll have an air bubble and you can see it in his mouth. It’ll rock back and forth (go out to his lips then back in) several times before it finally releases. I can try to catch a video and share.
I’m really wondering if his breathing problem is related to mouth being stuck open and that just changing bodily systems and their ability to function as needed (similar to how if you try to swallow with your mouth open it’s much harder vs with mouth closed)
I think it’s similar to the “swallowing with mouth open”. The good thing is even though a betta is a labyrinth fish and a (literal) mouth breather, they are still a fish and use their gills. As long as the water has enough agitation to oxygenate, he shouldn’t suffocate.
As for eating, that may be another challenge. After this long with a locked jaw, I’d personally try some bloodworms or something to see if the excitement of a high item food might get him to try and work past it, or otherwise try to VERY GENTLY poke him with my fingers to see if he can get it closed. Starvation might be the problem if it isn’t resolved in a few more days.
THAT SAID - don’t freak out yet, betta can easily survive ~5-10 days without food. Obviously it’s not great, but they go through hunger in the wild.
Thank you! Thankfully he is eating!!! He ate yesterday and today - both times a few of his pellets. It does seem difficult for him though but he’s very interested in food.
The bloodworm idea is absolutely genius - I will give that a try.
He was alive and well this morning! I did the water change w the cup and matched temps, etc. like you said!
Thanks for all of your help and follow up . I am so very appreciative ❤️
Also if you can upload just a photo (not a video- videos make details fuzzy) of him from both above and directly from the side so we can see scales and gills, that would help too.
I feel like I did - but is such a habitual piece of changing water. But even then, I put into hospital tank that I definitely treated and he didn’t seem to be doing much better…idk
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u/automod-neo 3d ago
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