Meet Dr. Benjamin Lewis

Dr. Lewis earned his Doctor of Veterinary Medicine from the University of Minnesota in 2023. Before veterinary school he completed a master's in marine ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of Houston — which is why the aquatic side of this practice is not an add-on. Water chemistry, fish medicine, and how a closed system goes wrong are where he started. From 2015 to 2019 he also taught high school marine biology — which matters more than it might sound, because a good part of this job is explaining a heat gradient or a water-chemistry problem to someone who has never had to think about one.

He treats reptiles, amphibians, fish, invertebrates, and corals — not dogs and cats. A bearded dragon, a ball python, a koi, and a reef tank fail in completely different ways, and none of them look like a sick dog. These species evolved to hide illness, so by the time something is obvious to an owner it is usually well advanced.

He has also kept them most of his life — ball pythons, geckos, chameleons, bearded dragons, a moray eel, along with dogs and cats. That counts for more than it sounds. A great deal of exotic medicine is husbandry, and a setup that is quietly wrong is easier to spot when you have run one yourself.

Scale & Fin started from that same experience. As an exotic-pet owner himself, Dr. Lewis kept running into the same wall — a vet who could see a dog or a cat, but not a bearded dragon, a ball python, or a 200-gallon reef tank, and nobody willing to come to animals that are genuinely difficult or risky to transport. He started this practice to be the vet he wished he'd had.

Doctor of Veterinary Medicine, University of Minnesota 2023 · Master of Science, Marine Ecology & Evolutionary Biology, University of Houston 2017 · Texas license #20017