In every betta group, someone will say that they tried API BETTAFIX or API MELAFIX and then someone replies with.
Don’t use anything that contains “fix” in the name. They contain oil that coat the labyrinth organ and can kill your fish.
Let’s break this down.
1. They don’t contain oil. Admittedly, I’m a pedant, but oil is a flammable chemical that floats on water that is usually made from petroleum. BETTAFIX, MELAFIX, and PIMAFIX contain essential oil, which isn’t the same thing. It’s like the difference between cotton and cotton candy. These products contain plant extracts. Admittedly some plant extracts don’t mix well with water and can float on the surface.
2. They don’t coat the labyrinth organ. I mean, until you can prove it. No one has used it and then smelled their betta’s breath. Freshwater fish don’t even drink the water that they’re in, and a fish with a labyrinth organ isn’t trying to use it under water. I’m guessing they’re saying that since the products are “oil” that they sit at the surface of the water and then when the fish pokes its head up to get a breath from the surface, that they inhale the oil. The fish knows how to take a breath from the air. Even if it does coat the labyrinth organ, have they determined that the fish is no longer able to get oxygen from the surface? The fish won’t even need to get oxygen from the surface unless you have a water quality issue where your water doesn’t contain enough dissolved oxygen. Finally, there have been university studies on MELAFIX and PIMAFIX and they have been shown to be harmless to fish.1
3. When I respond with “they don’t contain oil”, someone usually responds with, “they contain tea tree oil”. They don’t contain tea tree oil. PIMAFIX is bay oil. MELAFIX and BETTAFIX are cajeput oil. Cajeput is in the same genus as several tea tree species, but it’s not the same species. Also, as we discussed before, tea tree oil is not oil.
4. There are more products that end with “fix” than these three API products. There is also API Algaefix, which doesn’t contain any essential oils, and contains one of the safest algaecides currently available. There is OneFix by a completely different company that contains water clarifying bacteria and no esential oil. Fritz’s FixIch is an ich treatment that contains no essential oils. Aquaforest’s Stone Fix is a product for bonding aquascaping stones together that contains no essential oils.
HOWEVER: So far the research has shown that PIMAFIX and MELAFIX (BETTAFIX is basically a weaker concentration of MELAFIX) are really only good against flukes, and then only when used together.2 In general they have been found not to meet the majority of the claims on the bottle. This is the proper response to people using these products to treat things other than flukes.
Literature Cited
1 Shivappa, R. B., Christian, L. S., Noga, E. J., Law, J. M., & Lewbart, G. A. (2015). Laboratory Evaluation of Safety and Efficacy for Melafix (Melaleuca cajuputi Extract). Journal of Exotic Pet Medicine, 24(2), 188–192. doi:10.1053/j.jepm.2015.04.020
2 Schelkle B, Snellgrove D, Jones LL, Cable J (2015) Efficacy of commercially available products against Gyrodactylus turnbulli infections on guppies Poecilia reticulata. Dis Aquat Org 115:129-137. https://doi.org/10.3354/dao02886