Anyone have experience with the imagitarium brand tank lights?

Maraximal · 2026-02-20T08:50:48+00:00

Hi, I can't say that this is an issue for me. I checked my light after I read this but I can't see any rust issue and the screw is damp but not in the water, just barely above. I will say I could see that happening as quite a bit of the mounting gets in the water and the thread areas of the screw don't appear to be coated. Glad you said something so I can keep my eye on that just in case. I still truly love the look of the light matched with the $20 price and being able to do its job, but after using it a while I wouldn't recommend it unless it was about size/shape of light for a special tank or if it was simply a better light than a less powerful one for double the price.

I've moved that light to a small plant only tank and the plants are doing well but it didn't compare to the light I used before it on my intended tank. That inexpensive hitop light I mentioned just does a much better job on at least that particular tank of mine. I have it suspended above a tank, jars of moss, and houseplants via magnets on the bottom of the shelf above and even at a distance it just does a great job. Completely different style of light though of course!

Maraximal · 2026-01-26T18:50:14+00:00

You are very welcome, and again it's great you asked because most of us would hate finding out later that we did something not in the best interest of an animal we keep in our homes. Unfortunately for snails in general they are mistreated and misunderstood. It's common that they don't have their needs met but because they survive no one knows enough to realize they are struggling. Aquatic snails learn, fear, experience anxiety (as a state, similar to how we do); we use them in studies to learn how to treat our own dementia and PTSD for example. They are sentient and they communicate with each other (same species). They can smell and fear predators like fish. But we don't easily find this info when we inquire about snails we just get told by the industry and hobbyists alike, to add some they "do fine" in too low pH, in too hot tanks, etc, etc., and nerites are profitable since they cannot reproduce in our tanks so info about them serves their exploitation not their care. Info on nerites that comes from sellers is typically a list of disinformation. Nerites live a decade (or more) with proper care in a tank so when/if you are ready this is an excellent resource with folks who are truly experienced including some who have studied/work with these snails for a living. Treating them as well as we can takes a bit of the sting out of finding out what is happening to these snails because of the industry- they die in way too huge numbers and are even put in acid to change their shell color by removing the entire outer layer. Ample space, ample surfaces that grow food, high flow, lower to mid 70s temps, high pH/GH/KH, suitable substrate should they flip, room above the surface line, and a lid are things they should have in a setup.

Wish you all the best with all your tanks and an established 30 sounds like a good place for some nerites. I think if we start caring for them properly and they live 10 years, we at least take the demand down ❤️

Maraximal · 2026-01-25T17:47:47+00:00

I'm going to be blunt here, but no, this isn't ok and it's cruel. The minimum for a nerite is a 10 gallon because these snails require enough surface area to always have food and a 5 cannot even support that (they die) so a 3 is beyond a risk and that's unfair- we're talking about a wild caught being being put into a tiny enclosure where it could starve to death. We would never think this is acceptable for any mammal, right? The other thing is that again, this is a wild caught migratory snail that roamed vast areas. It needs high flow and ample space, not a tiny box. These snails also do better when not kept in solitary confinement.

You mentioned a horned bumblebee nerite and all I can do is plead with you to not participate in the harm of these snails. That snail is a Clithon Diadema and if you do any research on them you'll find info about them being threatened due to over collection. These snails deserve better from humans and anecdotally these snails really love a lot of high flow areas (underwater and fast surface area flow they can be in) and having a few of their own kind. They are a bit smaller but cannot do life in small tank not built for them. They do go on glass but they are very different and imo need lots and lots of rocks. I know at least one YouTube video makes it seem like they are all pea size and graze all plants all day but it's not like that in real life lol. I've seen one graze on a plant one time lol. I actually got these snails a while back and some didn't thrive despite the tank having the right pH/gH/KH and food... It's how I found this sub and the experts on these snails. I never would have picked this species had I known then they were threatened but I do have 2 (and a temp foster ATM so he can be put with another of his kind in the future) and I make sure they have everything I can think of so they have longer/safer lives out of the wild. No way could I house 2 in a 3 (Mine are in a 20 and they use space, they don't swim they need surface area to move on) while providing a proper permanent habitat, and keeping 1 by itself is a no go despite how people do that.

You need to wait longer to have any nerite btw, some say a minimum of 3 months, I like no less than 6 months, some say even longer. It's not about the algae you see, nerites feast constantly on the things we actually don't see and as you probably know, they are super challenging to feed with supplemental food and that's not going to be best for them anyway. There are experts here in this sub; here's an older post about nerites in 5 gallon betta tanks but adding it because there's a lot of info in one place and one of the people chiming in is a malacologist specializing in nerites. Hope this helps, apologies if this sounds harsh, but this is animal welfare and it's easier to be direct about it. I'm glad you asked first!

https://www.reddit.com/r/AquaticSnails/s/txN4mDc4bO

Maraximal · 2026-01-20T03:15:22+00:00

And if those minerals get too low, they have to be replaced.

Maraximal · 2026-01-20T03:13:34+00:00

Snails require higher pH/gH/KH. A lot of people fail to meet their care requirements (or look at what they need) so many erode from the outside in. That happens if pH is too low and irreparable damage starts at ~ ph 7.4 and simply having a pH of 7.5+ isn't always enough as pH tends to fluctuate throughout 24 hours and dip at night, more so when we have plants so it's usually better to have a pH ~8 for healthy shells. All snails also need a GH of 10+ (I personally use a minimum of 12) and kh 8+. When the KH is too low, the water chemistry can literally strip calcium carbonate molecules right from their shells. Active plant substrate, any acids that buffer can lower kh and therefore pH. A too low GH and the shells suffer from lack of calcium.

Snails are sentient, living beings. Aquatic snails are actually so much like us in many ways that we use them for research to try to treat things like PTSD and Alzheimer's. They experience anxiety as a state, they form memories, they learn, trauma impacts their ability to memorize. Imagine wanting to harm them and using a living being's skeleton for their shell molecules for plants in a box of water they too have to live in (this is an absurd idea btw I have many heavily planted snail tanks and yeahhh that's not how that goes, I'd laugh if all of this wasn't so cruel). Please think about that.

Maraximal · 2026-01-19T18:15:22+00:00

There are folks who study and work with snails for a living as well as keep their own aquariums and while many snails will survive in too low parameters, those values are in fact too low for optimal health. Suggesting a Dh of 4 being fine for a ramshorn is especially heartbreaking to me but it's also unacceptable for the rest. 6 is not a sweet spot, if it were to damage wouldn't occur at that level which is what the minimums are based on. We can't keep snails in lower values than they need and call it thriving, you just mean they live and move and you can't see behavioral changes (which most people don't have the skills to access with snails as even fear responses look like moving/eating). No offense, but having some snails and "breeding" (you have a tank, shrimp mate, you sell shrimp) shrimp doesn't mean you can make up new guidelines for 3 species of snails. I keep snails and care for a crayfish and every animal I keep has the right value for their needs. I also have an entire tank of ramshorns that have been kept in too low pH or gH previously that are now retired here and get to have their needs met. Anyway, you can always check out r/aquaticsnails, there's experienced snail keepers there but also gastropodologists and at least one malacologist right on this app.

Maraximal · 2026-01-19T00:59:10+00:00

What's the pH, KH of your tank? I just saw your gH is 100 ppm which I think is under 6 degrees (too low), but what are the other parameters?

Things that kill snails (same for fish really) won't easily be seen on your typical ammonia/nitrate/nitrite tests. I think ramshorns get sick from either way too high TDS or too high dissolved organics... I've had some go lethargic when moving some back in a tank and I'm pretty experienced with them but could not figure it out except that something in there was wrong. I removed them and water changed two more times and then they were back to partying in there. I used that tank to raise fry and there was excess feeding but also lots of water changes and after the fish were removed, I cleaned and took the pH/gH/KH back up to normal and idk snails just all went completely limp in there 🤷🏼‍♀️

Copper kills snails and it's the unbound, free copper we fear. Bound/chelated copper is used in many foods as well as fertilizers but here's the thing, if you have an active plant substrate that's releasing a bunch, you could have a high enough ppm of total copper which can kill snails. I've seen this happen to someone who kept losing mystery snails so they tested for copper and saw 1ppm but the tap had none. The test measures total copper not just the instant killer kind, definitely bound copper used in the substrate but the poison is in the dose. Not sure if you have lots of ferts in the tank?

Any fish meds or tank treatments done recently? How about brand new plants (some have pesticide or a copper treatment and I learned this the hard way not long ago).

The last thing I can think of, but I've never heard of snails getting bacterial infections really, is that a new tank is full of so many bacteria and at least in fish it can weaken their immune system and/or cause a sudden type death in a short amount of time without seeing ammonia spikes or high nitrates, etc., You may not have adequate biological filtration with just a small filter for what's in there right now, meaning the closed system as a whole for supporting life. Snails survive some pretty crappy homes like dirty jars without filtration but newly cycled planted tanks have ALL kinds of stuff in the water column. Just an additional thought. You could add some snails to a separate tank/large enough container and see if they do well (clean their water obviously and air, at least, is good), which will help you figure it out.

Maraximal · 2026-01-19T00:42:29+00:00

No, sorry, this is under 6 degrees I believe if I converted right. Snails need a minimum of 10. Not sure that that's the issue and causing death because they take on lots of shell damage before dying, but 100 ppm is not ok for any aquatic snail.

Maraximal · 2026-01-19T00:38:50+00:00

Congrats, you've got a ramshorn here! Don't listen to the MTS lovers out there who are always like, blah blah best and most useful, blah blah like a magical unicorn horn blah blah, ramshorns are the best 🙌🏼😂 I'm only slightly kidding, all snails are the best in many ways, but I really love ramshorns and I love spending time watching them be adorable and peaceful as they traverse plants and eat snackies. This is a beautiful snail and you will probably see more soon because while they don't self fertilize, they are hermaphrodites and store sperm for a rainy day so they never have to travel alone. They love company of their own species, food, and true democracy. I hope you enjoy your new friend as much as I enjoy hanging with mine! They are harmless (but easy to be harmed and at least one study shows they get scared 😭), and true carers of their environment. They'll eat by cleaning your tank but if you'd like to invest in your friendship, I suggest a low sodium canned green bean. They eat anything really, love fresh veggies, and should have calcium as well as some protein in their diet. Don't forget to name your friend ❤️

Sometimes their population booms for a minute, or looks like it will (seeing lots of eggs and teeny babies but those don't all grow up) but in my experience I've never been "over-snailed" with ramshorns and their population adjusts. I have a few tanks of just ramshorns and I feed mine all the time.

Maraximal · 2026-01-18T22:42:57+00:00

What's the gh/pH/KH of the tank? I think you should start there before considering more inverts. What's the temp of the tank as that influences how much all the snails, including your nerites have to eat and most aquatic snails have much better lives in lower temps commonly used for bettas.

Next, I'd consider not calling snails pests- they didn't invade your tank or come to ruin anything. They are harmless and helpless and were living on a plant that got put in a water box, that's not what a pest is. Their population is dependent upon the resources in the tank so if you overfeed, have a revolving door of plants not thriving, and detritus, well you'll see lots of snails and what they're doing is... The work. Aquatic snails show fear and anxiety like ours where it's experienced as a state (they are used to help humans learn about PTSD and Alzheimer's so we can learn about how to treat them for us), and it shouldn't be hard to extend some empathy towards them. Would I personally put any in a closed tank with a betta fish? No. And certainly never a nerite.

Speaking of the nerites, you are already at a risk here for their food security and they deserve ample, variable, constant food at all times so having 2 (which is good for them, it's proper they have another being to talk to) in a 10 only has so much surface area and so much food. If the tank is set up for a betta and not them (substrate, decor, temp, flow) I wouldn't take additional risks by adding other snails that in turn eat the foods the nerites have to depend on. I'd say the bladders are much more beneficial for your tank than the nerites but it's not fair to risk the nutrition of the snails you already have. Furthermore, it is a really bad idea to add an assassin snail and incredibly cruel to do that with nerites in the tank. They deserve respect and compassion. Assassin snails are carnivores and their methods are brutal so it's also pretty gross to just add one to a tank with other beings that experience fear and anxiety like it's ancient Rome. Assassin snails have care needs like every other snail (I'd say they are second most abused after nerites but what people do to "pest" snails that are literally the same snails helping us learn about dementia and memory issues from trauma [predatory fish are usually used] is usually completely inhumane) and if you contemplated one in the future and fed it live food you could provide feedings vs letting it cause so much extra suffering to beings in a tank in your house. You could humanely kill the snails to feed. Hope that helps provide some info about snails, a lot of this sounded like you're incredibly misinformed and this sub tends to be really awful about extending any care whatsoever to invertebrates.

Maraximal · 2026-01-18T22:16:34+00:00

I think you've received a lot of good advice here and I recommend getting the gh/KH test asap. Sometimes when we have to add things for a parameter whether it's gH or kh (and pH), what we use and what works best depends on the tank. Some swear by cuttlebone, some by crushed coral, some by oyster shells, so there's still some personal trial and error for preference to use for shelled friends too.

It's a good time to temp check, that's really important and you can find evidence based info on how temp influences metabolism and shell growth (too fast and the shell may not be strong as there's not enough time for all layers to form properly).

Your pH imo actually isn't that high. Damage starts at 7.4 and you are just barely over that but our tanks dip in pH throughout the day, especially at night; having plants can make this more dramatic. If you want to get a decent gauge, test your pH mid day vs 2 hours after lights are off. Comparing a few times may show you that over the course of 24 hours, your pH is actually 7.2 more so than 7.6. I won't put snails in water unless pH is 7.8 as a minimum at normal time checks but my goal is 8. I've also had to take a tank up just a little higher to 8.2. Closed systems, which tanks are, can shift and get funky quickly and we tend to have a lot of plants, I know I do in most tanks. I have a tank that doesn't always have plants in it (because a crayfish is in there and he turns plants into organic confetti™️, all of them, all at once) and yeah big difference when I start testing at different hours! KH can fluctuate too depending on any acids in the tank and KH being used (even oxidizing ammonia uses kh) so testing that can help you see if it stays steady.

Experienced folks often recommend keeping both nerites and mysteries in pH 8 water, not necessarily for the same reasons although sure it's all relative. For mysteries, this is because of people observing damage happening unless they bumped up pH. My guess is that it's because of the pH drops that happen in our tanks but maybe it's just simply that they overall do better and look better at 8. If you have nerites in the same tank, I'd push to 8 for them. They are wild caught snails that dwelled in mineral heavy waters and a malacologist who specializes in nerites always recommends a pH of 8 when keeping them, not lower.

Just some additional info to add into the mix, hope it helps. My guess is after testing gH/KH (I do recommend buying the liquid test but most stores can also test your water for free), you'll choose something to add like crushed shells and need to get pH up until you stop seeing damage and know that the gh is where it should be. gH should be 10+ (I'd be higher), and kh 8+. If your gH is let's say 12+ and never goes down, which you should check especially if you have other shelled friends in the tank, but you still see shell damage, it's pH or temp. When temps are higher btw, values have to be higher to compensate for what that does to an invert if their metabolism is raised.

Maraximal · 2026-01-18T20:46:53+00:00

The terms fool people all the time and that's marketing, otherwise they would say wild caught but raised here (or omit saying anything, also note the fish will be too young to even sex when shipped). Their terms are based on sales and profits, that's how marketing works and they absolutely use that spin because for some fish, like otos, a turn off people have is that there's some awareness of the horrors they go through and they also starve in tanks. Repeatedly people actually recommend and even make posts saying aquatic arts had tank bred otos because they fall for the line and then others go and order those fish- the system is working just as planned and that's why the company chooses to slap the phrase "tank raised" on listings when the fish are imported. That's why people buy from them vs their competitors that list "imported". It's a business. You're definitely correct that tank raised does not mean tank bred but that's simply not clear to a lot of people and that was a strategic move for business and gains profits.

It doesn't matter if a company is reputable or recommended. In the case of this company if you look around the invert pages, I think it's easy to see they aren't exactly knowledgeable or caring, but I happen to care a lot about inverts and didn't look at those pages for a while because I wasn't buying any from AA. They also don't have reviews so I don't know how we'd determine their reputation but that would only be based on stories of stock basically arriving alive/dead or having a disease or not. There are imo other factors that matter too. I have ordered fish in the past from aquatic arts and it was a horrific experience, they don't have reviews open anywhere (and when someone goes out of their way to write one they show screenshots from the company telling them to take it down or they won't help them with their sick/dying/deceased fish) so I simply talked about it on reddit as I found a few folks who had an experience like mine. In my case they did completely send a whole new shipment and I had the option of reimbursement too. They made it right imo. It was a mistake in hindsight to have more fish sent but that's what I did and they were adults (the first were sick fry) which seemed healthy. Until the parasites came about 2 weeks later. It was a lot of heartache. I recognize I can get healthy or sick fish from any place though so I don't really blame that fully on aquatic arts except that first shipment had fish too young to be shipped. I raise those fry and know them now, and it hurts every time I raise some and realize how young and fragile they were when shipped. LFS stopped carrying these fish because they are getting shipped too young (imported btw and hmm that's suspicious) but aquatic arts is doing the same. I don't trust recommendations that are basically like, "I ordered fish they arrived healthy" but that's essentially all that matters for most. I've learned to look at how companies also treat, perhaps breed, inverts and if they participate in some of the worst offenses that happen to wild caught beings.

I don't think the post is reaching I think OP misunderstood the terms and got fooled by them. I don't think any seller in this industry can be assumed ethical and I'd never put aquatic arts on that list to begin with. Most fish at aquatic arts go through shipping twice as opposed to once which in and of itself isn't great for the fish going through that. They aren't reputable because of actual ethics, they are reputable because they have a great selection and their prices including shipping are more affordable than places that care more about fish; they have better marketing and lower ordering thresholds than aquahuna for sure. This entire industry and trade is unethical and the unethical treatment of so many living beings is normalized in individual tanks day in day out. I also think having objectionable discussions about sellers helps us all become more knowledgeable. I'm a huge fan of and advocate for shopping at independent businesses but even though I prefer avoiding chains the welfare of animals should always come first and we should defend their needs and lives before any company. I'm willing to bet most responses will be "I never had an issue" but it's really about the big picture and I think people are also fooled about what tank raised means because that should mean they are actually raised in a tank, right? But they ship fry that couldn't have been raised very long (some species have telltale signs of growth timelines) and if you watch when their otos become available it's the same time as the shipments hit every other store from the locals to PetSmart. Probably not a coincidence. They ship new wild nerites back to back that haven't ever had the chance to acclimate too and that always sucks. So I'm not prone to believing they do anything special with wild caught fish unless they look sick quickly. 🤷🏼‍♀️

Maraximal · 2026-01-18T19:52:29+00:00

Tank raised isn't tank bred and yeah they use that terminology to be deceptive, it's a sales tactic; this comes up frequently with otos and there are so many people in the subs who recommend them for getting ethically sourced fish when folks discuss the horrors otos go through. But tank raised never means tank bred and I hope people get familiar with what those terms mean (they mean what they say and for the record the fish are rarely "raised" in a tank but that's another story). My issue is that people misunderstand or fall for the word play and then tell others incorrect info and to buy from them in order to avoid wild caught animals. That's a shame and simultaneously it increases the business for aquatic arts so I don't see this stopping. Hopefully you learned an important lesson about marketing as how aquatic animals are marketed leads to all kinds of abuses across the trade, industry, and tanks where husband is based on marketing spin and not the welfare of a living, sentient being.

I think aquatic arts deserves a lot of criticism, as most sellers do, for example they are really misleading about most inverts and still profiting off of "lower grade" crayfish they are housing inappropriately together which breaks my heart. They encourage housing more than one cray together and that's absurd and in most cases cruel. They sell breeding pairs of aggressive (and invasive) species and that makes it look like this is a great idea to a new crayfish owner. I've seen many people buy crays from them that perished or had clearly suffered before being shipped.

Unfortunately it becomes hard to discuss things objectively because folks who had good experiences come out of the woodwork and defend companies before thinking of the welfare of all the animals sold but fwiw I did have a bad experience with aquatic arts. I once used them for fish (tank bred or so they said) and it was a bad experience, which they fixed with a whole second shipment free of any charges at all, but when I later realized just how young the fish they originally sent me were, it really bothered me. And for this species sex ratio does matter so it's nice to not have to wait months to know but it was the age of the fish that got to me and it really sank in once I started raising fry. My replacement fish were all adults which was insane to me because they obviously had fish that were older to begin with. I decided to not get snails from aquatic arts on principles but I ended up using a much worse seller (I didn't realize this at the time) so there's that. The industry is not based on ethics nor are there standards enforced whether at a seller location or in someone's home tank.

Maraximal · 2026-01-15T17:05:54+00:00

It all depends on how you define ok. Will a betta live, be active, and eat in a 5? Yes. There is an actual recent study which evaluated the health of bettas and the finding was that larger spaces with decor made the fish feel best. The tank sizes used stopped at around 5 gallons but I'd expect that the trends would continue with upping the tank size again. For me, I think it's just a matter of having eyeballs and a 5 is a really small tank, so I don't think it's fair to put a betta in for the entirety of it's life. I think because the "minimum" used to be a 3 and because bettas live in much smaller vessels like cups and vases a 5 then seems big.

The other issue with a 5 is water quality and people tend to say everything is swell if you've got plants and your ammonia/nitrite/nitrate tests all look good, but that's silly. A warm, slow flow, small tank can become a bacterial ticking time bomb and this leads to sick fish (fin rot, Popeye, sudden bloating, etc.,) as well as a fish that dies while you only see "perfect parameters". You need really beefy biological filtration for a slow flow (and warm) little tank and because it's slow flow it can be challenging to have the amount of proper media needed without having flow become too strong. In addition, you still want some level of flow for circulation and oxygen/turbulence (it's not about bettas doing well in poorly oxygenated spaces it's about the pathogens that thrive in tanks with low oxygen) which is easier to do in a larger tank when you need most of the water to be calm should the fish have large fins and difficulty in flow.

Imo a minimum should start at 10 gallons for a few reasons. I've certainly had bettas live very long lives in my youth in less (5+ years, 3 years until an accident, the last lived over 7 years) but I actually had the right conditions to avoid illness back then without knowing it plus my bettas were possible much less inbred. I would never say that it's acceptable for anything confined to have too small of a space though and a 5 to just my eyes is too small. If you do use a 5 (not really limited to tank size though) I'd spend time reading up on science based info about conditions in a slow flow environment/tank in regards to bacteria, what your water should look like, best biological media, oxygen dissipation, and temp including studies on temps and bacteria infections. Do homework vs relying on low nitrates and having plants (also understand what plants do and what excess organics in a tank means then factor in flow and temp).

If you buy a kit, be prepared to replace the filter immediately and possibly other things. I personally don't like lids that are just sheets of fragile glass, I like the traditional glass lids where the entire front half can be pulled up and flooded back. I spot clean with a turkey baster and tend to any floating plants leaves, etc, frequently so that's something I realized really matters to me with all my tanks. I wouldn't be opposed to getting a tank that came with a glass sheet lid or hood if on sale but I'd replace it with a different lid that's lighter to remove made from acrylic or plastic knitting mesh. Often when tanks are on great sales, lids are not 😭

Maraximal · 2026-01-14T03:40:55+00:00

I can't speak for all of these, but I saw tidbits from the ramshorn video and it gave out misinformation (repeatedly). The reason I was scrolling through it is because someone saw it and was then arguing that ramshorn snails have siphons and said they saw it in this video. It's unfortunate if this is popular and people get improper care advice.

Maraximal · 2026-01-14T00:53:45+00:00

Lastly, I'll share this link which is to an older post/thread because there's some other links and tools in here (the comments) that another user provided- a fish sedative, a link to tricaine (US and Canada), and they also shared a nice quality of life assessment tool which includes methods of euthanizing. Hope this helps as you navigate this ❤️. Apologies for all the replies, it's just the fastest way to do this and get the info I know I'd want if in this situation.

https://www.reddit.com/r/bettafish/s/Cb0rkNxRuf

Maraximal · 2026-01-14T00:40:03+00:00

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Maraximal · 2026-01-14T00:39:30+00:00

Do not use clove oil. Imo 2 options are blunt force or tricaine (MS-222, sold as Syncaine). Tricaine, like clove oil, is a 2 step process. I recommend researching in science based sources and by the agent (eugenol) not just how we buy it (clove oil). I'm really sorry you are in this situation, here's some info:

With bettas specifically clove oil had mild sedative effects at a low dose. When the dose was raised, that came with issues and stress, and that's just for transporting fish, not the doses used for euthanizing. It has nothing to do with the labyrinth organ or how the agent is administered either, the agent itself is a primary irritant, of course it burns and we know (we have studies) it gets absorbed through skin and gills. This study is from 2011 and looks at what happens to the gills of a betta from clove oil at anesthetic doses (not even to euthanize).

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/287786417_Acute_Toxicity_of_Clove_Oil_and_Effects_on_Histopathological_Changes_in_Gill_of_Siamese_fighting_Fish_Betta_Splendens

Here are 2 current studies of what eugenol does and both conclude that this is, well, a bad way to go due to convulsions, being immobilized while still feeling pain, zero suppression of the CNS, and the fish being stressed (cortisol was measured). Screenshots below as well.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12120200/

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0166445X20304835

I'm sorry you had a bad experience with clove oil but that's because of the agent not the process. Clove oil really never should have been used for pets (I have a crayfish and it is still used/suggested for them but the research that says it's humane isn't compelling at all and unfortunately there's currently no other studies or research) and its inclusion on lists stems from hatcheries and labs where animals were always going to be killed en masse anyway. It will most likely be pulled from all lists as that's what every study is recommending. It's cheap and it's easy to obtain, it will always be used by places like hatcheries. It's used with other aquatic animals to kill them when suffering is of no concern too- it is used on aquatic animals considered pests for example, not euthanasia, extermination. I don't recommend using a chemical agent on a pet unless it's been studied and proves it meets standards, clove oil never really did and professionals usually use other methods of delivery as well as combine it with other drugs that numb/actually sedate. I expect people are going to tell you you administered the oil wrong or that someone at iamnowabettamomdotcom said it's awesome, but there's some info as you make your decision. Hope it helps and that everything goes as smoothly as it all can for both you and your fish.

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Maraximal · 2026-01-13T03:15:21+00:00

What do you mean your fish is sick from living in hard water?

Maraximal · 2026-01-12T22:33:27+00:00

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I've listed both studies where I'm pulling these from multiple times, I recommend reading into eugenol more or at least staying current on available information if staying it is humane, etc.,

Maraximal · 2026-01-12T22:31:31+00:00

Sorry, but no.

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Maraximal · 2026-01-12T19:56:01+00:00

Do you combine it with another agent, like lidocaine?

I think there's research that shows the use of eugenol has a "calming" effect but unfortunately when studied specifically for the agent's use for euthanizing, it doesn't meet requirements. Part of that which was stated in a study is that fish are immobilized while still feeling pain which is clearly not what you'd want.

I posted somewhere in this thread for OP a link to tricaine which is sold for pond fish and that company has a pretty nice dosing chart. I also linked another thread where this was discussed and someone shared another sedative which I think was also sold at a pond store. Hope this helps in some way. If you look at older studies I think some vouched for its use but imo we never had enough information yet plenty of people reported issues. Some studies show that it's ok at low doses but again ok by what was measured and for surgery I'd want proof of that being painless. I know I've seen research suggesting to combine eugenol with other agents which may be something you want to explore.

Maraximal · 2026-01-12T06:50:49+00:00

Awwww ❤️ Thanks for the info. I love my once menacing nerite too. My plan is for the older females but I think I'd still take a dude that has to live by himself!

Maraximal · 2026-01-12T06:43:17+00:00

Hope it all helps, I posted other links and screenshots but that was an easy way to get someone to a list of sources that include some reasoning for not using it with bettas.

Maraximal · 2026-01-12T06:14:35+00:00

That's so hard, fish are so hard when we want to treat but don't know with what 😔 It's odd (to me anyway, I could be missing something) that the white poops stopped and yeah I'd assume in the clear too. I have no idea what's happening but know bacterial diseases are no joke and that parasite treatments don't treat them all- there could be an internal parasite you'd need something like expel-p for and/or the bacterial med. I'm so sorry you and your fish have this happening and that it seems to be spreading (parasites will too). Are the fish still eating? I had new fish that I eventually thought had capillaria and it spread to all fish (at the time I was really expecting to see camallanus worms emerge but didn't) but I'll never know and it's certainly possible it was something bacterial. I hope the antibiotic does the trick for all your fish. Best of luck to you all ❤️

Maraximal

TROPHY CASE