Blind Tang? Powder Blue

[Beamers]

backstory:
I've had a powder blue tang for almost 3 years now, and after pulling most of the rock out of the tank this past weekend I noticed he was acting funny.

At first I thought the fish was just confused of his surroundings because of the rockscape change, but when I go to nudge him out of a corner he barely reacts.

He has no fear of the net, my hand, anything. I don't have a close up picture of him atm - but he looks exactly like this - no obvious injuries.

The only difference from this picture is that his Iris ( the brownish part of this fish's eye ) is almost totally white. There is nearly no pigment. Could this be a telltale sign of blindness?

 

[Crusty Old Shellback]

It could be. I had a rabbit fish with the same symptoms. Eye's were almost solid white. But he could still find food and other fish in the tank didn't seem to bother him. He did however sting and kill one of my Copper Banded Butterfly's on day when they scared him.

 

[MrTuskfish]

If he doesn't panic when touched, I think its a lot more than blindness. Fish can generally feel approaching hands, nets, other fish, etc.

 

[maroun.c]

I raised a hyppo tang that got blind years ago. I remember the fish wiuld react to anything moving in the water. I guess they can still feek through their lateral line. They can also smell food. And it would swim to an area of the small q tank I placed it in to eat the food which it knew would accumulate there the second I would drop food in the tank. Not sure abiut the white eyes though as my tank got blind after some disease... Could it be a pigmentation issue like albino animals having red eyes due to loss of pigmentation?

 

[andip3]

my powder blue has pure white eyes and is not blind he actually has great vision he can see you approaching the room and darts into the rocks haha