New Coral Beauty - Pop eye and bad depth perception

[nickbuol]

Our regional reef club had a large online group purchase from probably the largest online fish seller (the one with a 14 day guarantee), and anyway, I picked up a coral beauty.

The shipment went out this past Monday for delivery by 10:30 am Tuesday, however FedEx had a series of "mechanical issues and delays" that meant that the fish weren't delivered until Wednesday (extra 24 hours). Most everything survived, but one fish (my C.B.) was looking bad, really bad.

I acclimated it for a long time, and it mainly just was lying on the bottom of my acclimation bucket. I really thought that it was dead. So much so that I was about ready to flush it and claim it. Then, it fluttered in the bottom of the bucket.

So, no need to acclimate any more. It had already been about 2.5 hours. I had the QT up and running for him with the proper seeded sponges, etc for biofilter.

Anyway, in he went, and he swan a bit and then just went back to the bottom for a while.

6 hours after the shipment arrive, like someone just woke him up, and he started swimming. Crazy.

Flash forward one day and he has a pop eye on one eye that is pretty bad (clear and you can see the eye moving when he looks around, but stick out far). The other one *might* be inflamed a little as well, but if it is, it isn't much compared to the first eye.

I believe that the combination of poor water quality after 48 hours, plus it potentially scratching it eye(s) on the bottom of the bucket caused this problem. Many people recommended doing nothing, or maybe adding epsom salt to the QT to help with the swelling and that if it was from a scratch, that it would heal on its own. So I did with the 1 TBs per 5 gallon dosage of epsom salt.

Now it is Saturday, there is no visible improvement in the pop eye, but the fish is active and swimming. My challenge has been to get it even interested in food. Finally, this afternoon it decided that it was interested in picking at a couple of pellets that I put in. However, it kept "missing" as it "snicked" at them. It would "undershoot" if you know what I mean and not quite get the food.

I thought that maybe it wanted something else, so I put a little strip of nori in, and it looked interested right away, but again, it keeps not "snicking" quite far enough, just barely missing getting any food. It has been trying for about 30 minutes to eat the nori.

So now my concern is that I need to speed up the pop eye healing so that its vision can improve enough to eat. Again, both eyes are clear and able to move, but something is wrong obviously.

There are no other visible signs of sickness or issues (I know that a lot of things can be hidden).

I just did water tests about an hour ago. Here are the details of everything.

20 gallon long QT
HOB power filter with sponges seeded for 2 weeks from DT sump which had rubble live rock in it.
Air sponge filter that was also seeded.
Ammonia 0
Nitrite 0
Nitrate 5 ppm
pH 7.9 (a touch low)
Salinity 34 ppt (1.023 SG)
Temp 78F

Any thoughts or advice on how to help clear up the pop eye in hopes of him being able to eat?

I've spent so much time worrying about this little guy. Someone told me that I should call him Lazarus since he already "came back from the dead" but we've got to get him healed up before I am going to name him.

Thanks again for any advice.

 

[Mrscribbled]

Put an additional dose of espom salt in the tank. May have to go an antibiotic route also .


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[nickbuol]

What is a good antibiotic? Used to be Maracyn 1&2, but I can never find saltwater versions anywhere.

- Nick

 

[HumbleFish]

What is a good antibiotic? Used to be Maracyn 1&2, but I can never find saltwater versions anywhere.

API erythromycin is basically Maracyn without the appetite stimulant and will knock out most bacterial infections. Or use Furan-2 if you suspect the possibility of a gram negative infection.

 

[Fretfreak13]

I work at a store and sometimes we get fish in with stress popeye from our wholesalers. Never once has one died from it, and it will go away in time. Make sure your little guy is eating, and if not invest in that garlic soak. Feed it a few different kinds of foods that have different protiens, amino acids, etc. so that its little immune system is good in strong.

Sometimes the fish get scarred from this kind of thing, and only once have I actually seen one loose an eye. More often than not they come out of it with no signs of previous distress. I have seen one yellow watchman loose an eye, and a potters has a deformed eye that she probably has limited sight in, but can still see. I'm actually thinking about bringing her home, it gives her character.

I hope your little one pulls through with no visible, impairing effects! Kudos to you for not giving up on him!

 

[nickbuol]

Thanks everyone. I started the erythromycin tonight. Hopefully that will help. I have used Kent Garlic Extreme which seemed to boost the fish's desire to eat, but like I said, I think that its vision/depth perception is off. It tried to eat, but keeps "missing". It takes snicks/bites just short of actually getting anything. Thus the reason I am concerned about the pop eye so much. I think that it is the key factor here in getting the coral beauty to eat.

I will keep dosing per instructions and hopefully soon things will be better enough that it can actually eat the food in front of it.