Content

• Steps
• Method 1 of 2: How to prevent bulging
• Method 2 of 2: How to treat bulging
• Warnings

It happens instantly: last week the fighting fish was healthy, and now its eyes are swollen, fogged and crawled out of their sockets. Unfortunately, these are all symptoms of bulging, or exophthalmia, in which fluid collects behind the fish's eye. It is an unpleasant disease, but a clean environment, isolation and medication will help bring the fish back to normal and prevent the development of this disease in the future.

Steps

Method 1 of 2: How to prevent bulging

1. 1 Change the water regularly. The most common cause of bulging in fish is dirty water, so changing the dirty water in the aquarium often is necessary to prevent disease. Make sure your fighting fish always has clean water to prevent it from developing bulging eyes.
   • If you keep fighting fish in an aquarium of 8 liters or less, change 50% of the water weekly.
   • If the fighting fish is kept in a large aquarium, change 10-25% of the water every 2-4 weeks.
2. 2 Clean the aquarium every 1-2 weeks. If you have a filter, clean the aquarium twice a week and once a week if not.
   • Carefully remove the fish from the tank with the net and place it in a separate clean tank with water.
   • Drain all water from the first aquarium, remove all pebbles and decorations and rinse them with clean water.
   • Take paper towels and use them to wipe down the inside of the aquarium.
   • Return pebbles and decorations to the aquarium, but before returning the fish, fill it with bottled drinking water or treated tap water.
3. 3 Keep the water in the aquarium warm. The natural habitat of the fighting fish is warm, stagnant water. To provide your fish with a good habitat, keep the water temperature between 24.4-27.7 ° C.
4. 4 Keep your tank water slightly acidic. Use pH test strips to find out how acidic your aquarium water is. The acidity level should be between 6.5 and 7.
   • If the pH level is too high, then before pouring the water into the aquarium, it will need to be filtered through sphagnum moss.
   • If the pH is lower than desired, add baking soda or seashells to the aquarium.
5. 5 Buy a tester to measure the hardness of your water. Betta fish prefer to stay in soft water, so keep the water hardness at 9.8 mEq / L. If your aquarium water is too hard, go to an aquarium store and buy a specialized product that can help extract calcium and magnesium from the water.
6. 6 Be careful when adding new fish to your tank. Different fish need a different environment, so don't settle for a fish that needs a completely different habitat. Bulging eyes in fish can occur due to incorrect water levels in the aquarium, and the presence of new fish, which requires a completely different ecosystem, can lead to a change in these levels.

Method 2 of 2: How to treat bulging

1. 1 Isolate the fish. Remove dangerous jewelry and aggressive fish from your fighting fish habitat. Most likely, your fighting fish's eyesight is impaired, which means that the risk of bumping into sharp objects in the aquarium or getting injured by other fish is much higher. Prevent this by placing the fish in a separate tank for a while.
2. 2 Add Epsom salts to the aquarium. Epsom salt, or magnesium sulfate, does a good job of removing fluid that has accumulated behind your fish's eye. Once every three days, add one tablespoon (20 g) of salt to the aquarium where the fish is located for every 18.9 liters of water.
3. 3 Add antibiotics to the water. There are several types of antibiotics that can be added to an aquarium to treat bulging. You can usually buy them at a pet store or hobby store.
   • Add ampicillin to the tank and change the water every three days. Use the medicine for another week after the bulging has gone away.
   • If you notice bulging at an early stage, use erythromycin, minocycline, trimetropine, or sulfadimidine. These are all antibiotics commonly used to treat fin rot.
4. 4 Return your fighting fish to its tank after the swelling subsides. This can take from several weeks to several months. Corneal repair may take even longer. Return the fish to its original tank a few weeks after its eyes return to normal size.
   • In some especially advanced cases, the fish's eye can rot and fall out during the healing process. In this case, the fighting fish will have to be permanently settled in a separate aquarium.

Warnings

• In addition to dirty water, bulging in fish can result from a serious, fatal disease like tuberculosis.
• Chlorine is fatal to fish, so remove any traces of it from your tap water with a filter.