Midas has a cloudy eye?!?!

[Sarah88]

ok so i went to visit my parents for the weekend and when i got back on tuesday i saw that my young midas (about 4-5in) had a clear bubble on the lower 3/4 of his eyeball. its not pop-eye as its not his actual eye bulging out its just this weird bubble on his eye, well i immediately did a water change (as i will admit i had been kind of slacking on lately but ive gone 3 weeks before without changing and nitrates never went above 10-20ppm since all my fish are still young, so didnt really think anything of it and none of the other fish are ill) (though i think i hadnt changed the water in 4-5 weeks this time, its the longest ive gone without changing usually i try to do weekly or at least every two weeks water changes but got busy with final exams this past month ) well the next day it looked like the bubble had deflated and it and his eye are now a whitish cloudy color. When i saw this i added salt to the water to see if that will help and finished dosing today so there is now 2tsp per gallon in the tank and i raised the temp to 84. do any of you know exactly what this is? and can it be cured with just salt or do i need to separate him and medicate? i really like this fish and want him to pull through so any advice would be great

 

[Adhlc]

I've seen this exact issue with a lot of fish that get brought into the fish store in buckets. All I can figure is the fish are rubbing or leaning on the side of the buckets too much which would definitely affect a fishes eyes first. Perhaps your Midas just scraped it on something? What's the pH testing at?

Aside from salting you could try and give him a bath in some sort of anti-bacterial medication for a few minutes. Though personally I think it'll heal nicely with the salt you added.

 

[6 bar]

With cloudy eyes, I recommend melafix. You might wanna give it a shot.

 

[Sarah88]

thanks adam, yeah i don't think it was rubbing cus it had this weird clear bubble on his eye first and then it deflated and went cloudy it was really weird, but my pH out the tap is like 7.2 and i have lots of tannins in my water from the driftwood, so i haven't tested it but im sure it stays at about 7.0 or slightly under. n yeah i guess ill see if his eye is looking better tomorrow and if not then i will try putting him in the smaller tank and dosing it with melafix (i have two small pictus cats that im growing out in the small tank, is melafix ok for scaleless fish?). He is the low fish on the totem pole in my tank right now so has been being picked on and has a couple bite marks near his tail, could the thing with his eye possibly be from one of the fish biting him there?

 

[driftwood]

I had a similar situation with one of my Gymnogeophagus and water changes didn't seem to help. I think its bacterial related and can lead to gill disease which might kill the fish. I used Triple sulfer and it cured my fish in about a week but sadly I did loose two small Balzani in the process of treating the fish. If your Midas starts gasping you may want to go a different route other than Melfix.

 

[Adhlc]

thanks adam, yeah i don't think it was rubbing cus it had this weird clear bubble on his eye first and then it deflated and went cloudy it was really weird

Sorry, I guess I missed the part about the bubble. If you can catch him, I'd try doing a bath with Erythromycin. It'd be a lot more cost effective than dosing your 120 with it. Of course, like 6 bar and driftwood said, Melafix could also really help - especially if any of the other fish start to show similar issues.

 

[Sarah88]

thanks, yeah guess im gonna have to take out the wood and try to catch him tomorrow, i have a 20g long still set-up that i can medicate him in, hopefully its not something thats contagious so i wont have to worry about the PITA it will be to dose my 120

 

[driftwood]

thanks, yeah guess im gonna have to take out the wood and try to catch him tomorrow, i have a 20g long still set-up that i can medicate him in, hopefully its not something thats contagious so i wont have to worry about the PITA it will be to dose my 120

Thats a good idea. It cost me some serious cash to treat my 125 gallon but then again I had another fish displaying similar symptoms so I felt it was necessary to treat the tank. If you do use medication just do lots of water changes and i think you'll be ok. Good luck with your fish.

 

[Aquanero]

Most of the time it's caused by poor water quality, also if the Ph drops below 6.5 it can cause this condition. It's not all that uncommon if the water hasn't been changed in a while. Do a lot of frequent water changes and it should correct itself. If it's a bacterial infection it's most likly gram negative so you could treat accordingly. GL

 

[Sarah88]

thanks everyone, yeah im pretty sure its because i was slacking on the water changes lately, hopefully my stupidity doesnt cost my midas his life and i can get him to heal, definitely going to make sure i keep on top of water changes from now on, im looking to thin my stock out a little bit too so that should help with water quality as well. any other thoughts on whether melafix is ok for pictus cats because the two i have in the 20g atm are still too small to put in my 120g