Cardinal with cloudy eye

[Otto2]

I just noticed that one of my cardinals has a cloudy eye. Its his right eye. Any idea what this is? I remember reading about this before, but cant find any info now. The fish is still eating and acting fine. I just don't have a clue when it comes to sick fish.
Water params:
Salinty - 35ppm
Temp - 78.4
Nitrate - 40
pH - 8.2
Alk - 8 dkh
Calcium - 420
Ammonia - 0
Nitrite - 0
Phosphate - 0
Copper - 0

 

[Kieth71]

Flukes...qt him and treat with prazipro.I should say i beleive that is what it is.I am bye no means an expert.It sure looks like it though.

 

[limitdown]

Try a 10min freshwater dip and see if the cloudy stuff falls off of the eye (ie flukes). If nothing falls off, then it might be a bacterial infection, in which case you'll need to drop him into a hospital tank and treat with an antibiotic like furan or minocycline (maracyn 2).

 

[Campbell]

Hi,

I have just dealt with this on some Cardinals and Tangs I bought. I believe the parasite is N. Melleni and I was struggling to get rid of it before I got the Praziquantel.

N. Melleni eats the eyes so quick action is for the best.

I used a combination of FW dip and Hikari Prazipro. Treat as instructed on the bottle. You will need the second dose as the parasites life cycle is 7 to 10 days, this 2nd dose will catch all the newly hatched critters.

The trouble is going to come from the eggs in your system, I'd watch all the fish carefully as N. Melleni is very hard to see when not on the eyes.

Here's are pics of the critters on my Whiteface Tang, in case it helps you identify infested fish and a pic of a dead one, they only go white when dead otherwise, as can be seen in the center of the distortion, right most arrow, of the 2nd Tang pic, they are very much transparent.

HTH
Campbell