Hmmm.....I have no idea what the levels are in my water. I feed them egular fish flakes. there are 6 fish in a 10 gallon. he seems perfectly fine. there were two new mollys added and a beta recently. he eats when we put food in. He and the other were always towards the bottom so that's not wierd.

The thing is. I have two of these fish. i don't know what kind of fish they are. They're gold, and have black spots in lines going horizontal from head to fin. The one fish is perfectly fine, but the other one had an eye that is like...pouched out. my dad thought that it might be swollen, but i have no idea

I think you are talking about a danio... how big is the fish? Is the eye just popping out or does it have white cottony growth around it? Take a look at the different fish pictures in www.liveaquaria.com to see what kind you have.

One major thing I see already is that your tank is Very overstocked, which will add to stress and the chemical imbalances.

I know some might find the idea of researching every fish you buy a bit excessive, but at least find a website and check how large they get.
If you use the 1inch rule- each molly is going to get to be around 4'', the betta around 3'' and your danios could get between 2-3 inches. So you can see that that's a lot of fish once they finish growing. Most petstores aren't going to sell full size fish, since most want the younger and smaller fish since they have longer lives that way.

Another issue to consider is that Mollies usually like a little salt in their water (note usually) where the betta doesn't like salt if at all. And the Leopard Danios (sounds like what they are) will take up the betta's space at the top, making him uncomfortable and prone to stress from nipping.

~Kim~

well, i jsut looked closer at the fishes eye. it doesn't seem to have any white growths on it, it actually looks like......well if it was a human, like it had been punched in the face. it looks more black and swollen.

i looked at the page, and it didnt' look like those fish, so i dont know what to say.

do you think it might help if i took the betta out and put it in a different smaller bowl?

no, never ever put a fish in a bowl!!

it's not a really small bowl:P we've had bettas in them before:P

how many gallons?

If your fish has not been injured it might be popeye caused by an internal bacterial infection. Look for antibiotics that treat popeye such as Marcyn II

Actually, Eric, there are a few fish that can live in bowls. But, with that said, generally those are bettas or other fish that have a labrynth organ. It's not necessarily ideal, but if it's 1 gallon or more, it's adequate.

I think it would be safer to the betta, as long as the temp doesn't get below about 75, and the water is changed before ammonia registers on your test kit. That would generally be every 4-5 days of complete change of water and rinse of everything.

~Kim~

what exactly is a labyrinth organ?

It's the organ that lets bettas and fish like that get oxygen by "breathing" air. It's a cavity with folded tissues that holds air that they take in, and lets the oxygen move into the blood vessels in the folds. I guess some "Labyrinth fish" can ONLY get oxygen this way, but bettas have gills too.