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Growing Bump on Face and Popeye?

965 views 21 replies 4 participants last post by  FrostPixie 
#1 ·
Hi everyone, hoping to get some advice for one of my fish. So as you can see from the pictures, his face developed these bumps and they seem to be growing. The closest eye also appears to have some popeye going on too. The first picture was taken about a week and a half ago, and while the bumps are bigger now, it gives you an idea of what it looks like from the front and a view of his eye. The second picture is a very close up one I got two days ago, taken with the Super Macro setting, but it doesn't really show his eye and I'm pretty sure the front bump is bigger now. Tonight is his fourth dose of Triple Sulfa and the end of the treatment course, it really doesn't seem to be helping at all and I'm not sure what to do next. Any advice would be appreciated, thank you.

Housing
What size is your tank? 3 Gallons
What temperature is your tank? 78 to 80
Does your tank have a filter? No
Does your tank have an air stone or other type of aeration? No
Is your tank heated? Yes
What tank mates does your betta fish live with? None

Food
What type of food do you feed your betta fish? New Life Spectrum Small Fish Formula
How often do you feed your betta fish? Every day

Maintenance
How often do you perform a water change? Lately it's been about a week and half between changes. I know that's not the generally recommended schedule, I've been trying to space out %100 changes to lessen the stress. I hesitate to do large partials because of the pH difference between water just from the tap and water that has been sitting out. I do turkey baster out poo and extra food often, though.
What percentage of the water do you change when you perform a water change? %100
What type of additives do you add to the water when you perform a water change? Seachem Prime

Water Parameters:
Have you tested your water? If so, what are the following parameters? I haven't tested, but I have a test kit so I can if I need to.

Ammonia:
Nitrite:
Nitrate:
pH:
Hardness:
Alkalinity:

Symptoms and Treatment
How has your betta fish's appearance changed? His face has bumps that seem to be growing and one eye seems to have popeye. The bumps don't appear fuzzy.
How has your betta fish's behavior changed? I really haven't noticed much of any behavior changes. He still has the same appetite. I think he's slowing down with old age so it's kind of hard to tell if he's lethargic or not, to be honest.
When did you start noticing the symptoms? I noticed them about a week and a half ago, but since it just looked like a bump and he wasn't acting any different I didn't take immediate action. I certainly regret that now. :cry:
Have you started treating your fish? If so, how? Tonight is his fourth dose of Triple Sulfa.
Does your fish have any history of being ill? I can't recall him ever being sick before.
How old is your fish (approximately)? I got him at the end of October in 2013.
 

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#5 ·
(Going to reply to your PM here instead of there)

I'm really sorry, end of semester woes really; trying to cram everything in!

Definitey try the KanaPlex. When I looked at the other pictures, the bumps on his face look like it has to do with bacteria building up inside which is what causes the pop-eye and subsequently, the bumps on his face, or at least, I've seen it happen before so let's hope it's just that. But if you can soak the med in food and get him to eat it, that would be better and quicker than just letting him soak in it. I believe you can do both ways at the same time, more googling should give more info if you can.
 
#6 · (Edited)
Oh yeah, it is about the end isn't it? Good luck cramming!

I did a water change to make sure the Triple Sulfa was gone and dosed with Kanaplex, hopefully it'll help. I could try to soak his food as well if it's safe to do both at the same time, however his small fish formula tends to resemble powder more than pellets so I'm not sure how successful that will be. Regardless, I can give it a try if I can figure out exactly how to dose it. The instructions just say a measure for every tablespoon of frozen paste, hopefully that'll translate into putting it in water and soaking food in it well enough.

Thanks for getting back to me despite the semester woes, I really appreciate it. Now I just hope that Haku's new thing I mentioned isn't serious. Wish I could get a picture to show you, but he doesn't stay still and it's pretty small. :-?
 
#7 ·
Could you cup Haku to get a pic? Try a really small container maybe? Or less water for him to move around in?

Yeah, I'm not so sure how exactly to dose it, I generally just put like quarter of a scoop in a tablespoon of water with the pellets and soak about five minutes since they tend to sink after that which is annoying for me; all my fish eat floating things.
 
#8 ·
Good idea, I'll try that and see if I can get a semi decent picture.

If you've done that dosage and it's been fine then I'll do that. I just don't want to accidently give him too much. Yeah, mine eat floating stuff too. I had a problem with Sky because his aim was off and he kept making all his food sink so I had to get a bunch out with a turkey baster every night. Now though he's learned that when it sinks he can not only try and catch it on the way down, but actually swim down and eat it off the bottom. Before it was like 'Oh it's falling, I can't get it' and 'But I can't eat it now, it's on the bottom and you know that means it's gone'. :lol:
 
#9 ·
So an update on Sky. He's been on the Kanaplex for about eight days now and his face bumps and popeye don't appear to be growing, but he's been lethargically hanging around more and much less interested in food. The last couple days I've been having to throw a bunch of food in, wait for him to respond and hopefully eat a little, and do that over again until he's had enough. Then I have to turkey baster out a bunch of food and consequently, water. I'm not sure how much he actually got tonight, but he did eat a freeze dried bloodworm. Not the most nutritional, I know, but at least it's something.

Here's a few new pictures taken tonight. I'm concerned over the behavioral changes, but don't really know what else to do besides keep with the Kanaplex.
 

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#10 ·
Kanamycin is not absorbed through the gut, so adding it to the food is only helpful for infections within the gut. I'd stop adding it to the food and just keep dosing in the water only. Since kanamycin is primarily active against gram-negative pathogens, it would really be helpful if we could swab the area and see if you have gram positive or negative infection.

Although most fish infections are gram-negative, I've read that some eye infections are gram positive, and a better antibiotic for those is erythromycin. This site suggests that erythromycin can be used along with nitrofurazone for a more comprehensive treatment against both gram-positive and gram-negative pathogens: Streptococcus, Eye Infections in Fish
Since your fish may be running out of time, I'd consider trying this broad-spectrum treatment as your next line of defense.
 
#11 ·
Thanks for the response, Kim. He hasn't had Kanaplex soaked food for a few days. Sorry, I should've mentioned earlier.

So Furan-2 combined with Maracyn? Are there special dosing instructions for combinations, or just use the package instructions for both? Looking it up, I think Furan-2 has a 25% water change on day three and after the treatment and the Maracyn treatment lasts a day longer. I'm assuming do the Furan-2 instructed water changes and as long as I dose after that, it shouldn't interfere with the Maracyn?

The thing is though that today is the second treatment of his second Kanaplex course, and I know that you're not supposed to stop in the middle in case of creating resistant bacteria. That being said, he has gone through one full course already.
 
#12 ·
As far as I know, you would just follow the dosing instructions on the packages for the furan-2 and maracyn. I have not tried this particular combination myself, but it is recommended here: Streptococcus, Eye Infections in Fish
I tried to find other sources that recommended this combo but have been unsuccessful so far. It is your call whether you want to try it, or perhaps just try the erythromycin by itself since the infection already failed to respond to kanamycin (which treats gram-negative infections like nitrofurazone).

How often do you normally need to change your tank water to keep ammonia at 0 ppm? Here is how I generally deal with water changes and medications in uncycled tanks:

First, you have to understand that the reason you need to redose medications into the water column is because they gradually become inactivated. Essentially, you start out with a high dose which gradually wanes over the course of several days. Somewhere along the line, someone has calculated the rate of decay and the optimal antibiotic concentration and devised a water change/dosing schedule to keep the concentration of active antibiotic in the optimal range. Although it would be difficult to determine the actual concentration of active antibiotic in the water after several days of treatment, you do know that the original dosage (day 1) is within this optimal range. In an uncycled tank, I only do 100% water changes when medicating, since there is no way to keep ammonia at 0 ppm using the typical partial water change schedule recommended on the antibiotic package. Having ammonia in your water is just going to hurt the fish's recovery, so I perform a 100% water change either when the antibiotic package recommends a partial change (example: day 2 or 3 of treatment) OR when the water needs to be changed to prevent detectible ammonia levels, whichever comes FIRST. After the water change, I re-dose the antibiotic(s) to their original level.

Here is an example for maracyn and Furan-2:

Instructions for maracyn: Add the contents of one packet per 10 gallons of water and repeat every 24 hours for 5 days. After 5 days, you do a partial water change and then you can repeat the treatment according to the package.
Instructions for furan-2: Add 1 packet to 10 gallons of water. Wait 24 hrs. Repeat dose. Wait 24 hrs. Change 25% water and repeat dose. Wait 24 hrs. Repeat dose. Wait 24 hrs. Change 25% water.

Also say my tank needed a 100% water change every 3rd day to avoid ammonia buildup. So you have the following water change recommendations:
- change the water every 3rd day (the usual tank maintenance routine assuming only 100% water changes are used)
- change the water after 5 days (from the maracyn instructions)
- change the water every 3rd day (from the furan-2 instructions)

You go with the LEAST amount of time between water changes (to make sure the antibiotics are within their optimal concentration), so you would be changing the water 100% every 3rd day and redosing both of the antibiotics into the now clean water at this time. Similarly, if you chose just to use the erythromycin, then you would be comparing the recommended water changes for the maracyn with your normal tank maintenance (every 5th day and every 3rd day respectively), and you would choose to change the water every 3rd day. Hopefully this makes sense, if not, just let me know.

As for the kanamycin, yes, you should not stop halfway through a treatment. However, you've been treating for probably 10 days or so now, and that is definitely a complete treatment (it doesn't matter that we consider it part of a 'second' treatment, you just need to finish at least 1 full treatment course), so you are safe to stop. In my experience, if you haven't seen any improvement by 10 days, that medication is not going to work regardless of how long you continue treatment. If you read the link about eye infections, it does mention that many are gram-positive in nature, which correlates well with the lack of response that you are seeing while using kanamycin (primarily a gram-negative antibiotic).
 
#13 ·
Thank you for the very detailed response, Kim. I went to PetSmart, but only found API E.M. Erythromycin, so for right now I'll just use erythromycin. Your explanation for the water changes did make sense, thank you. He's still trying to eat a little bit, but not very much. I'm not sure how much food he got tonight, if any, but hopefully the gram-positive medication works better.
 
#14 ·
Poor guy. I really hope the erythromycin helps. I'm crossing my fingers for him!
 
#15 ·
Thanks, Kim. He's not really doing too well, but he's hanging on. Now, the erythromycin instructions say to do a 25% water change today, but is it really necessary? Like, is there some sort of risk involved in not doing it? I think he's pretty fragile right now, and I don't want to disturb him if it's not really necessary.
 
#16 ·
Yes, you want to do the water change to avoid overdosing him. I'm sorry to hear he isn't doing well :( Sometimes it's just really hard with these little guys. We often can't get the tests that we need to figure out exactly what's wrong, we are limited in our drug delivery mechanisms, and sometimes there just isn't much that we can do. Just try not to beat yourself up over it if he doesn't recover. You took great care of him and did exactly what I would have done (kanamycin first since most pathogens are gram negative, then erythromycin to cover the possibility of a gram positive infection). You have done more for him than most fish will ever experience.
 
#17 ·
Ok, thanks for the information. I was wondering if potential overdosing was why they instruct that, but wasn't really sure. Tonight I'll try to be extra, extra gentle with the water change.

And thanks so much for your kind words. I really appreciate it and all the help you've given me.
 
#20 ·
I'm so sorry to hear about Skylark :( You really did everything you could for him, and he had a wonderful life with you. I know that doesn't necessarily help with the sadness of losing him, but you should at least know that he was lucky to have such a dedicated owner. S.I.P. Skylark
 
#19 ·
Sorry to hear your little one passed away! My fish has a weird growth on him to(on the left side, near his eye on his gill) ... but I got him that way from the pet store and didn't think too much of it when I got him... he even has a bad case of fin rot which I've been trying to treat. I've posted about it on here earlier this week: http://www.bettafish.com/showthread.php?t=556490

Hoping maybe someone might be able to help me with how to get rid of the lump he has. He also has some strange discoloration patch... not sure if that's his normal coloring. Presently, I'm just treating him for the fin rot - but he's lethargic and doesn't eat or really swim, just hangs out at the top of the surface of the water taking breaths regularly. I'm a bit worried about him :-( Maybe @Kim you might have some advice?

I'm going to be doing a full water change tomorrow for him but I'll remove him from his tank and place him in a temporary bowl while I do the water change; no sense in stressing him.
 

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#21 ·
Sorry to hear your little one passed away! My fish has a weird growth on him to(on the left side, near his eye on his gill) ... but I got him that way from the pet store and didn't think too much of it when I got him... he even has a bad case of fin rot which I've been trying to treat. I've posted about it on here earlier this week: Help please! I want to help my sick betta get better!

Hoping maybe someone might be able to help me with how to get rid of the lump he has. He also has some strange discoloration patch... not sure if that's his normal coloring. Presently, I'm just treating him for the fin rot - but he's lethargic and doesn't eat or really swim, just hangs out at the top of the surface of the water taking breaths regularly. I'm a bit worried about him :-( Maybe @Kim you might have some advice?

I'm going to be doing a full water change tomorrow for him but I'll remove him from his tank and place him in a temporary bowl while I do the water change; no sense in stressing him.
I'd suggest making your own post out of courtesy to the OP, but I'll answer you right away in the interest of time. You can make a new post and put the link here to direct others to your own post.

First, what are you using to treat him for fin rot, and what is your tank setup and water change schedule? I think the patch on his side is probably just his coloration. The bump on his face is a bit more worriesome. Is there any way to get a picture of that side of his body?
 
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