Gill cover not closing

[purple_drazi]

One of my betta girls looks like she's permanently flaring on one side because the gill cover is open. I don't know if it's open because it's infected and swollen or if there's a tiny piece of gravel caught in there. It does look as if there might be something black & gravely in there but it's really hard to see (as you might imagine).

I tried putting her in a shallow bowl and gently irrigating the gills with water and a medicine dropper. Didn't work.
Then I thought that if she flared hard enough it might dislodge itself (if in fact, there is something there, which I'm not 100% sure of) so I put one of the boys in the bowl with her and watched them like a hawk. She flared really hard at him but it didn't fix the problem. I put him back.

I read that the gill of a betta may become inflamed because of nitrate poisoning or possibly bacterial infection, and the treatment is to add antibiotic (Picking one that treats inflamed gills) to the water. In the case of nitrate poisoning, add one drop of methylene blue in betta’s jar.

I've put her in a separate bowl and put bettamax in her water. Bettamax is a blended antibiotic for bacterial and fungal infections but it doesn't actually say anything about inflamed gills.

The ammonia is 0, nitrite is 0 and nitrate is 5.0 in the tank she was in.

Any ideas? Is bettamax strong enough?

 

[fish_keeper2]

if theres something lodged in the kills medicin wont help. it needs to physicly be removed but as seeing its a small fish that could be hard