I think my fish is/was bleeding

[Supermassive]

I just noticed it after I fed him. He has a lot of redness on the bottom of his gill flaps only on one side. I don't know what could have happened other than he ate a snail. He seems to be acting normal. I cant tell that its bothering him.

I have catappa leaves and aquarium salt I could use. I also have stress guard and the med trio if any of that would help.

I haven't tested ammonia or nitrite. Nitrate was ~30ppm today. PH should be ~7.4. GH ~70ppm. KH ~40ppm. Temp 77-79

Edited November 29, 2023 by Supermassive

[Tlindsey]

On 11/28/2023 at 8:23 PM, Supermassive said:

He seems to be acting normal

If observing normal behavior no rapid breathing. I wouldn't worry btw Betta looks good to me.

[nabokovfan87]

Look at that blue!!!! wow.

At this point I would add a small amount of salt.  1 tbsp per 5G (API dose) should be safe to use with a lot of plants and will gently help the fish to recover.  If you continue to see redness, treat for bacterial (in about 7 days), but if you see any sort of cotton or wool forming on the wounds that would point towards fungal.  Often one can lead to the other so it's just something to look out for. 

The redness could've been from just getting bumped into the glass or struggling with the food like you mentioned.  Bettas have deceptively small mouths so I would try to stick towards betta pellets.  There's a ton of them out there.  I would recommend checking out the aqueon nutrinsect betta pellets which does a really good job of replicating what they'd eat in the wild and being really affordable.  Xtreme krill flakes are also pretty good too!

 

[Supermassive]

On 11/28/2023 at 10:13 PM, nabokovfan87 said:

Look at that blue!!!! wow.

Ha, thanks! It is pretty fantastic.

On 11/28/2023 at 10:13 PM, nabokovfan87 said:

At this point I would add a small amount of salt.  1 tbsp per 5G (API dose) should be safe to use with a lot of plants and will gently help the fish to recover.  If you continue to see redness, treat for bacterial (in about 7 days), but if you see any sort of cotton or wool forming on the wounds that would point towards fungal.  Often one can lead to the other so it's just something to look out for. 

Okay I will add the salt and keep a close eye on him. Thanks for the advice.

On 11/28/2023 at 10:13 PM, nabokovfan87 said:

The redness could've been from just getting bumped into the glass or struggling with the food like you mentioned.  Bettas have deceptively small mouths so I would try to stick towards betta pellets.  There's a ton of them out there.  I would recommend checking out the aqueon nutrinsect betta pellets which does a really good job of replicating what they'd eat in the wild and being really affordable.  Xtreme krill flakes are also pretty good too!

I feed him betta bug bites, which can be kind of hard and jagged, along with omega betta flakes and northfin betta pellets. Maybe I should stop feeding the bug bites or make sure he only gets the small pieces. The northfin pellets are tiny and I think those are pretty good.  Ill keep a look out for the ones you mentioned by aqueon, thanks for the suggestion.

One thing I've been wondering about recently is how often to replace food. I think I saw a video by Cory where he was explaining it can go stale after about 6 months but maybe I'm misremembering. I think some of my food is that old.

[Supermassive]

I just noticed he's also very bloated so I'm thinking he probably did eat a pretty big snail and hurt his mouth.

[nabokovfan87]

On 11/28/2023 at 9:09 PM, Supermassive said:

One thing I've been wondering about recently is how often to replace food. I think I saw a video by Cory where he was explaining it can go stale after about 6 months but maybe I'm misremembering. I think some of my food is that old.

It's tough to find the right size food package!  I have a little food jar from one of my old foods I bought and I just use the container.  When I get a few foods I like I might just make a mix and keep it in there.  It's a nice way to blend foods that you like and just have this smaller container to open daily instead of opening the bigger bags of food or something.  Keeping it in the fridge also helps!

That being said, yeah... 3-6 months is about the time when I notice fish just start to ignore a food because it's not appealing to them.  I go by that more than anything.  If it's a food I know they should really enjoy and usually do when it's first opened, maybe that's indicative of freshness.
 

On 11/28/2023 at 9:23 PM, Supermassive said:

I just noticed he's also very bloated so I'm thinking he probably did eat a pretty big snail and hurt his mouth.

That sucks.  I'm sorry!  Fish don't need to eat every day and the poor guy is probably having a bit of discomfort. Keep us posted and hopefully after 4-5 days of no feeding, you notice the swelling go down.

[Supermassive]

On 11/29/2023 at 3:26 AM, nabokovfan87 said:

It's tough to find the right size food package!  I have a little food jar from one of my old foods I bought and I just use the container.  When I get a few foods I like I might just make a mix and keep it in there.  It's a nice way to blend foods that you like and just have this smaller container to open daily instead of opening the bigger bags of food or something.  Keeping it in the fridge also helps!

That's a good idea. I will start doing that.

 

On 11/29/2023 at 3:26 AM, nabokovfan87 said:

That sucks.  I'm sorry!  Fish don't need to eat every day and the poor guy is probably having a bit of discomfort. Keep us posted and hopefully after 4-5 days of no feeding, you notice the swelling go down.

I think its already gone down quite a bit overnight. He still looks a little chubby but not like yesterday.

[Supermassive]

I think he has fully recovered. The redness from the blood has all dissolved. I also saw an empty snail shell in the tank about 3-4mm in size. Very large object for his mouth. Hopefully he doesn't do it again.

[nabokovfan87]

If you want to remove the snails, probably safer that way given the issues. If you do see one on the glass or something you can just smoosh it.