Fish blindness?

[mandel]

Hello

It's been 3 days since I noticed that my domino damsel is not eating anymore and he swims around the rocks only. He used to be very active before.

I found out that my heater didn't work for one or two days and the temperature lowered to 69.8 F. The other fishes (in fact I only have one blue damsel and a skunk shrimp) seem to be ok.

I also had an algae bloom, resolved by turning off the lights for 2 days.

The water parameters seem to be ok, apart the Calcium level, which is 320 mg/L.

Could these lead to a temporary/permanent blindness of my domino damsel?

If yes, how can I feed him?

Thank you.

 

[Holmie_D_Klown]

Unless his eyes are milky colored, it's unlikely he is blind. More likely just stressed.

 

[mandel]

I'm afraid he's blind. He bumps into rocks or my skunk shrimp, he swims only along rocks, he doesn't see the food.

The good news is he started to eat from the surface of the water. I used to tap the glass and stop the buttons on the top, and he remembered this. He swims up in small "steps" until he feels the surface and takes a bite. But there's also food falling in front of him and he doesn' see it.

His eyes aren't swollen, he looks normal. I don't know what could lead to this problem...

Someone suggested to "dip" him in freshwater for a few minutes.

What do you think?

Thanks

 

[dcombs44]

Give some numbers on your water params so we can see what you mean by "good"

 

[mandel]

Thank you for your reply.

Water parameters on February 10th:

Water temperature: 77 degrees F
pH: 8
KH: 11
NH4: 0.5
NO2-N: 0.1
NO3: 10
PO4: 0
Cu: 0
Ca: 320
Salinity: 1.023

Regards

 

[Hormigaquatica]

your NH4 is too high; that coupled with the big temp flux is more than enough to seriously stress the fish out. He may just be struggling overall, rather than simply being blind. The best thing you can do for now is keep trying to feed him, and do a number of water changes on the system to bring conditions back to where they need to be.

 

[mandel]

Hi!

Thank you all for your answers! It seems my fish is OK now.

I put a tablet of Nifurpirinol 27.6mg (I'm not sure I'm allowed to post the commercial name of the product) in 0.5gal of aquarium water. Dipped the fish in that recipient for 30 minutes.

Then I emptied out almost 50% of my aquarium water and put 2 tablets in the aquarium (26 galons of water). Then I put the fish back in the tank.

After almost six hours he was seeing food in detail and not bumping into rocks or fish.

After 3 days I'll take out 50% of the water and I'll put carbon in my filter to wash the antibiotic. Btw, take out the carbon from the filter before adding the tablets.

I hope you'll never need this information, but you never know!

Thanks again!