A white eye?

[ken55]

I have noticed that one of my fish has a whiteish color in his eye. It kind of reminds me of an older dog that has started to go blind in one eye. I have seen this a couple of times in the past and had asumed it was an injury of some sort (ran into a rock or bullying or something like that). When it happens the fish never seems to make it more than a couple of weeks afterward. This will be the third time in about a year and a half. I am now thinking that this is actually a disease of some type.

Any ideas on where I could start looking for an answer to solve this??

Thanks,
Ken

 

[sandwi54]

This is called cloudy eye. What you mentioned with injury as a reason is not cloudy eye, but rather pop eye. They are two different conditions.

Cloudy eye is usually a result of poor water quality and general stress. This condition requires you to find the source of the problem. Please list your water parameters as well as the stocking. Which fish is it and who are his tank mates? Is there aggression between the fish? You mentioned that this is the third time happening, so there must be something wrong with your tank. We need more details about its conditions.

Pop eye, if happened to only one eye, is generally the result of injury. It will usually heal on its own provided the water quality is good. Cloudy eye, on the other hand, has many sources, most commonly bacterial or parasitic infections. If cloudy eye is left untreated, it could and often claim the fish's life.

 

[ken55]

The current affected fish is a niger trigger who very well may be stressed because he is in way to small of a tank. Ive had him about 6 months now. I found Reef Central about a month ago. Since then I have realized my mistake and I have tried to give him away but to no avail. He eats well. His tank mates are a yellowtail damsel and a watchman goby and a black urchin.

I do have water quality issues that I believe stem from my use of crushed coral as a substrate. I'm upgrading to a larger (still not big enough for the trigger) tank this weekend and will be switching to arragonite sand. I'm hoping that the crushed coral is trapping detrius and that is what is leading to my quality issues. I change about 15% water every 7 to 10 days.

The specs are:
salinity 1.025
nitrate 80ppm
nitrite .1 ppm
ammonia .25 ppm
ph 8.0 to 8.2

I do not have a tds or phosphate test. I use water purchased from lfs for both changes and top-off.

I hope I can get him back to health. I can't give him away as it is and NOBODY is going to want him if he's sick.

Thanks for your help.

P.s. would "pop eye" look like a bubble under the eye?? if so that kind of matches but I think the cloudy description matches better.

 

[sandwi54]

No problem Ken. You have a big problem. Crushed corals will introduce high nitrate by trapping detritus, but should have nothing to do with ammonia and nitrite. The presence of ammonia means you are either way overfeeding or your biological filter capacitor is not enough to sustain the load. Your nitrate is a little higher than desirable but is not the cause of the cloudy eye. Changing to arragonite sand will bring down the nitrate over time but is not the source of the problem. Keep in mind that niger triggers are carnivores and eat/poop a lot, which creates a huge load on the system that only a large filtration system can resolve.

Please post your tank size and filtration system so we can comment. Specifically, are you using a wet/dry filter? or are you using live rocks and if you do, how much? In the meantime, please do a 50% water change to bring down the ammonia. Do it twice if you have to, until the test kit does not register any ammonia at all. Presence of ammonia, no matter how little, is detrimental to fish as it continues burning their gills and skin. You must do LARGE water changes to combat it until you can figure out what the problem is.

When you do large water changes, add the replacement water slowly, preferrably over the course of 30-60 minutes so you don't shock the fish, similarly to how you acclimate them to a new tank.

 

[ken55]

I use a marineland cannister loaded with granulated carbon (replaced monthly) and a reef octopus skimmer that is new to the system and is just starting to break in. I do have live rock but not sure of the actual lbs. I added 20 lbs two weeks ago (can you tell I'm building up for the move). I'm guessing it was about 30lbs to begin with. Mayby slightly more but not much.

It's almost 7:30 local time and the lfs closes at 8:00. I can't get there tonight but will tomorrow morning for the 50% change.

On a side note..... or mayby the main note..... A fellow gave me a small chunk of some type of coral a few months back. It had a purple base with little green polyps. I'm pretty sure he said it was a daisy. Anyway the coral died but I kept it around because a bunch of mushrooms sprouted from the rock. The purple base is still there. Is this thing poisoning my water??

It is, ahem, a 30g tank. Please don't fuss at me about the trigger. I didn't know at the time and I have been trying to rehome him.

 

[sandwi54]

Definitely won't fuss you. Every new hobbyist makes mistakes.

Of course, due to the limited 30g water volume, any mistake you make is going to have a drastic, often detrimental, effect on the system. Reef octopus skimmers are good but it's doing nothing right now since it's still breaking in. A dead organism (in this case the daisies) can introduce a large ammonia spike which needs to be addressed.

Since you cannot get to the LFS to get new water, use Seachem Prime to detoxify the ammonia. Use 3x of the regular dosage and it will work for the time being. If you have not removed the dead daisies, please remove them immediately. Your main focus right now is to remove the ammonia.

Also, just a recommendation for the future, get a RODI unit and make your own water, and always have at least 50% of the water at hand for emergencies like this. LFS water is quite expensive and it's difficult to lug 15g of water. Not to mention most LFS don't change their filters regularly and their water are not much better than tap. A basic RODI unit can be purchased from Bulk Reef Supply for around $120 and will pay for itself within a year or so.

 

[ken55]

Added Prime (I actually had some!) and chucking the daisey rock. I'm feeling pretty stupid. I would have removed a dead critter right away knowing it would mess up the water but I somehow began thinking of the daisey rock as the mushroom rock. The lightbulb is slow for me.

My own RO/DI is on my wish list. I'm in a rural area and it's an hour round trip to lfs. If I had known the water from them was that bad I would have made it a higher priority.

I will change out 15g tomorrow am. Will post back in a day or two to let you know how it's going. Thanks so much for your help.

Ken

P.s. Do you think the trigger has a reasonable chance to pull through? I would still like to find him a bigger home.

 

[sandwi54]

I think the trigger has a good chance of pulling through if the water parameters issues are corrected right away. However, if the cloudy eye persists for another 2-3 days, that means its immune system is not strong enough to fight with the infection, and I would put him into QT for Maracyn 2 (antibiotics) treatment. Please do report back and let us know how he's doing.

 

[ken55]

I think the trigger has a good chance of pulling through if the water parameters issues are corrected right away. However, if the cloudy eye persists for another 2-3 days, that means its immune system is not strong enough to fight with the infection, and I would put him into QT for Maracyn 2 (antibiotics) treatment. Please do report back and let us know how he's doing.

Ok, I ditched the daisey/mushroom rock and did the water change. 24 hours later (this morning) the test kit shows not the "tweety bird yellow" for zero but not the pale greenish for 0.25 either. Somewhere in between I suppose. I will hit it with another water change tonight.

The trigger looks better. His eye doesn't look cloudy now.

I was planning on switching up to my bigger tank this weekend. Would the added water volume help by dilluting even more or would you suggest waiting untill this is behind me before changing anything around?

Thanks again,
Ken

 

[sandwi54]

The added water would help dilute the ammonia, but I would not move the fish until he fully recovers, assuming you can keep doing water changes to your current tank to keep ammonia down.

Glad to hear the trigger is recovering. Just keep up with the water changes and prime (don't dose more than once every 24 hours) and you should be ok.

 

[ken55]

How will I know when he is fully recovered? He is very active, always eats like a horse, and does not seem to breathe heavily. Other than the whitish eye I never would have suspected anything wrong with him.

Would ammonia to zero and give it another week with no reoccurance of white eyes be considered recovered?

Thanks,
Ken

 

[sandwi54]

I would consider him recovered when the cloudy eye goes away, that is, the eye is clear again.

Moving tanks is not going to cause much stress at all so if you really want, you can move him now. I just figured it's better to leave him as is until he recovers.

 

[Triton_Z]

I would consider him recovered when the cloudy eye goes away, that is, the eye is clear again.

Agreed. Triggers are pretty hardy and it will likely bounce back once you get the ammonia and other levels under control. I can't add much more as you're in good hands and have already been steered the right way.

Good luck with your tank and the extra water volume (new tank) should make a big difference. I'd maybe cut your feeding down a bit at the start (don't starve the beast, but just a tad less after the move).

 

[sandwi54]

My fish eyes color is white, I have noticed this things.I show my fish one eye is blind than after to change poor water in my tank, and many test to this water. I think planning for switching in my tank. Would the added water volume help by dilluting even more or would you suggest waiting untill this is behind me before changing anything around?.

Added water volume will definitely help to dilute the ammonia in the water. However, there shouldn't be ammonia in the first place unless there is not enough biological filtration (e.g., live rocks) or the tank is too small. You will have to figure out what is causing the presence of ammonia and address that, otherwise simply having a bigger tank will only alleviate, but not eliminate the problem.