A second fish has gone blind. Has anyone seen multiple fish affected with blindness before?

[Longball]

Hi all, first time posting here and should have done this sooner but I was hoping patience would let things normalize but after pulling my goby from the DT yesterday I had to get my questions out there. Bear with me:

I first started seeing problems about 6 weeks ago, when my yellow dottyback was hiding and not eating, and within the last few weeks I watched as my engineer goby also completely withdrew to his cave, not eating or moving sand or even appearing for over two weeks now.

Over the last few weeks I got rid of what I thought was the problem which were my domino and 3 stripe damsels bullying the tank. They harassed my dottyback when he’d show his face and I never saw them directly antagonize the engineer but now the two have the same symptoms.

After rehoming the damsels my dottyback almost immediately returned to the open spaces of the tank but it seemed like something was strange. He was no longer skittish of my approaching the tank and then when I saw him swimming a bit I noticed he’s completely blind. He bumps into the glass and rocks, even has some damage to his lower lip I think from impacts. He can’t tell when I wave my hand in front of the glass or move any instruments in front of him. He doesn’t go after food so any food he’s eating has to basically be pure luck. As I was dealing with that I also noticed the engineer goby showing up less frequent for food and when he would pop out he wouldn’t really go after food as well and instead I would basically have to drop it on his head but he would still take it.

Today I finally pulled the engineer from the tank so I could feed him in quarantine and monitor him and he also appears blind. He also does a very faint rolling/pitching movement when he slowly moves around the tank but other than that he swims normally when he moves a little faster. Color actually looks great, no spots like ich, no visible flukes, no blotchy slime coat…

Naturally now I suspect it’s gotta be some parasite or virus. Maybe something in my water even? But all results I see online address blindness from damage or trauma, but both fish have clear eyes, no visible damage, no indicators of sickness. I can’t diagnose the issue and haven’t done any illness treatment before.

Has anyone seen anything like this? Is there any generic treatment I can do for them in quarantine? I read that maracyn is a good catch-all when one is unsure what the sickness could be, would you start with that?

Parameters:
Ammonia 0
Nitrite 0
Nitrate 13.6
Salt 1.023
Alk 8.6
PH 8.1
Temp 78
Phos 0.43
Cal 450
Mag 1140

I’ve had chronic high nitrate and phosphate for the last year. Got them down to about 5 and 0.3 respectively after setting up a skimmer and doing a round of phosguard. I need to re-up the phosguard soon to keep it dropping consistently. Tank was bought off a guy with the entire setup last May and my background is freshwater and it’s FOWLR so I only ever really tested for ammonia/no3/no4 so when I finally got serious about testing the full suite with good test kits I was alarmed at the phosphate and have been working on it aggressively.

Rest of my stock is just a blue spot puffer and a single clown right now.

Thanks for any help

Edit: added info: yes I use RODI, I do a weekly 20gal change as I’ve been working on dropping phosphate. System is a 90gal with 15gal sump, tons of live rock and deep sand bed.

 

[vetteguy53081]

Hi all, first time posting here and should have done this sooner but I was hoping patience would let things normalize but after pulling my goby from the DT yesterday I had to get my questions out there. Bear with me:

I first started seeing problems about 6 weeks ago, when my yellow dottyback was hiding and not eating, and within the last few weeks I watched as my engineer goby also completely withdrew to his cave, not eating or moving sand or even appearing for over two weeks now.

Over the last few weeks I got rid of what I thought was the problem which were my domino and 3 stripe damsels bullying the tank. They harassed my dottyback when he’d show his face and I never saw them directly antagonize the engineer but now the two have the same symptoms.

After rehoming the damsels my dottyback almost immediately returned to the open spaces of the tank but it seemed like something was strange. He was no longer skittish of my approaching the tank and then when I saw him swimming a bit I noticed he’s completely blind. He bumps into the glass and rocks, even has some damage to his lower lip I think from impacts. He can’t tell when I wave my hand in front of the glass or move any instruments in front of him. He doesn’t go after food so any food he’s eating has to basically be pure luck. As I was dealing with that I also noticed the engineer goby showing up less frequent for food and when he would pop out he wouldn’t really go after food as well and instead I would basically have to drop it on his head but he would still take it.

Today I finally pulled the engineer from the tank so I could feed him in quarantine and monitor him and he also appears blind. He also does a very faint rolling/pitching movement when he slowly moves around the tank but other than that he swims normally when he moves a little faster. Color actually looks great, no spots like ich, no visible flukes, no blotchy slime coat…

Naturally now I suspect it’s gotta be some parasite or virus. Maybe something in my water even? But all results I see online address blindness from damage or trauma, but both fish have clear eyes, no visible damage, no indicators of sickness. I can’t diagnose the issue and haven’t done any illness treatment before.

Has anyone seen anything like this? Is there any generic treatment I can do for them in quarantine? I read that maracyn is a good catch-all when one is unsure what the sickness could be, would you start with that?

Parameters:
Ammonia 0
Nitrite 0
Nitrate 13.6
Salt 1.023
Alk 8.6
PH 8.1
Temp 78
Phos 0.43
Cal 450
Mag 1140

I’ve had chronic high nitrate and phosphate for the last year. Got them down to about 5 and 0.3 respectively after setting up a skimmer and doing a round of phosguard. I need to re-up the phosguard soon to keep it dropping consistently. Tank was bought off a guy with the entire setup last May and my background is freshwater and it’s FOWLR so I only ever really tested for ammonia/no3/no4 so when I finally got serious about testing the full suite with good test kits I was alarmed at the phosphate and have been working on it aggressively.

Rest of my stock is just a blue spot puffer and a single clown right now.

Thanks for any help

Edit: added info: yes I use RODI, I do a weekly 20gal change as I’ve been working on dropping phosphate. System is a 90gal with 15gal sump, tons of live rock and deep sand bed.

Please post pics or video under bright white light intensity of fish and is it one eye or both?
Additionally, maracyn as pictured is good for eye issues.
Verify your water by taking a water sample to a store that does not use Api kits to confirm not a water issue. Disregard nitrite which is freshwater specific.

 

[exnisstech]

Following. I have a melanarus wrasse that I think has gone blind.

 

[Longball]

Please post pics or video under bright white light intensity of fish and is it one eye or both?
Additionally, maracyn as pictured is good for eye issues.
Verify your water by taking a water sample to a store that does not use Api kits to confirm not a water issue. Disregard nitrite which is freshwater specific.

Hi all, first time posting here and should have done this sooner but I was hoping patience would let things normalize but after pulling my goby from the DT yesterday I had to get my questions out there. Bear with me:

I first started seeing problems about 6 weeks ago, when my yellow dottyback was hiding and not eating, and within the last few weeks I watched as my engineer goby also completely withdrew to his cave, not eating or moving sand or even appearing for over two weeks now.

Over the last few weeks I got rid of what I thought was the problem which were my domino and 3 stripe damsels bullying the tank. They harassed my dottyback when he’d show his face and I never saw them directly antagonize the engineer but now the two have the same symptoms.

After rehoming the damsels my dottyback almost immediately returned to the open spaces of the tank but it seemed like something was strange. He was no longer skittish of my approaching the tank and then when I saw him swimming a bit I noticed he’s completely blind. He bumps into the glass and rocks, even has some damage to his lower lip I think from impacts. He can’t tell when I wave my hand in front of the glass or move any instruments in front of him. He doesn’t go after food so any food he’s eating has to basically be pure luck. As I was dealing with that I also noticed the engineer goby showing up less frequent for food and when he would pop out he wouldn’t really go after food as well and instead I would basically have to drop it on his head but he would still take it.

Today I finally pulled the engineer from the tank so I could feed him in quarantine and monitor him and he also appears blind. He also does a very faint rolling/pitching movement when he slowly moves around the tank but other than that he swims normally when he moves a little faster. Color actually looks great, no spots like ich, no visible flukes, no blotchy slime coat…

Naturally now I suspect it’s gotta be some parasite or virus. Maybe something in my water even? But all results I see online address blindness from damage or trauma, but both fish have clear eyes, no visible damage, no indicators of sickness. I can’t diagnose the issue and haven’t done any illness treatment before.

Has anyone seen anything like this? Is there any generic treatment I can do for them in quarantine? I read that maracyn is a good catch-all when one is unsure what the sickness could be, would you start with that?

Parameters:
Ammonia 0
Nitrite 0
Nitrate 13.6
Salt 1.023
Alk 8.6
PH 8.1
Temp 78
Phos 0.43
Cal 450
Mag 1140

I’ve had chronic high nitrate and phosphate for the last year. Got them down to about 5 and 0.3 respectively after setting up a skimmer and doing a round of phosguard. I need to re-up the phosguard soon to keep it dropping consistently. Tank was bought off a guy with the entire setup last May and my background is freshwater and it’s FOWLR so I only ever really tested for ammonia/no3/no4 so when I finally got serious about testing the full suite with good test kits I was alarmed at the phosphate and have been working on it aggressively.

Rest of my stock is just a blue spot puffer and a single clown right now.

Thanks for any help

Edit: added info: yes I use RODI, I do a weekly 20gal change as I’ve been working on dropping phosphate. System is a 90gal with 15gal sump, tons of live rock and deep sand bed.

 

[Longball]

Please post pics or video under bright white light intensity of fish and is it one eye or both?
Additionally, maracyn as pictured is good for eye issues.
Verify your water by taking a water sample to a store that does not use Api kits to confirm not a water issue. Disregard nitrite which is freshwater specific.

Tried to post a video, I’ll try again later cuz it doesn’t seem to play on my phone.

I test at home with Hanna and salifert kits, and last week I took to my local reef shop to verify parameters and his numbers closely matched mine. The listed values are from his test this past Sunday. Neither he nor I use API.

Yes it appears to affect both eyes in both fish. That’s part of why I doubt it’s injury related.

I’m going to start maracyn 2 this evening.

 

[Longball]

Following. I have a melanarus wrasse that I think has gone blind.

Any chance you have high nitrate or phosphate or witnessed any bullying like I have? Maybe similar events to mine.

 

[vetteguy53081]

Those kit readings I trust. Some things that cause this blindness - Infection/bacterial, light too bright, poor diet, trauma type injury and even genetic blindness.

 

[djf91]

Hi yes,

I had this happen a few years ago. I had a leopard wrasse develop this in my display. Seemed to just happen out of the blue. Couldn’t eat, running into glass and rocks. She perished within a few a weeks because of this. Shortly after that I had my recently added Potters angelfish develop the same thing and eventually die (the Potters angelfish was added right before the leopard wrasse developed symptoms). I’m guessing that the Potters angel may have brought in some type of parasite targeting the optic nerve.

I thought I had read somewhere that Hawaiian fish seem to harbor a larger number parasites on average.

 

[exnisstech]

Any chance you have high nitrate or phosphate or witnessed any bullying like I have? Maybe similar events to mine.

No nothing like that. I just didn't see the fish for several days then when it did come out it was acting very strange. Normally its cruising in and out of the rocks hunting. Now it swims along the sides of the glass often touching the glass and at times it goes to the top and will break the surface with it's dorsal fin. It doesn't respond when I wave a white towel in front of it but it does react a bit if I shine a flashlight on it so maybe it isn't totally blind. It has no injuries and looks healthy even tho I haven't seen it eat in two weeks. I don't known if it's getting lucky and finding food when I'm not looking or if its healthy enough it hasn't started to deteriorate yet.
EDIT: Also it was the last fish in 5 months ago and all other 15 or so fish are fine, some that have been with me 7+ years so I'm ruling out disease.

 

[Jay Hemdal Verified Community Expert]

Hi all, first time posting here and should have done this sooner but I was hoping patience would let things normalize but after pulling my goby from the DT yesterday I had to get my questions out there. Bear with me:

I first started seeing problems about 6 weeks ago, when my yellow dottyback was hiding and not eating, and within the last few weeks I watched as my engineer goby also completely withdrew to his cave, not eating or moving sand or even appearing for over two weeks now.

Over the last few weeks I got rid of what I thought was the problem which were my domino and 3 stripe damsels bullying the tank. They harassed my dottyback when he’d show his face and I never saw them directly antagonize the engineer but now the two have the same symptoms.

After rehoming the damsels my dottyback almost immediately returned to the open spaces of the tank but it seemed like something was strange. He was no longer skittish of my approaching the tank and then when I saw him swimming a bit I noticed he’s completely blind. He bumps into the glass and rocks, even has some damage to his lower lip I think from impacts. He can’t tell when I wave my hand in front of the glass or move any instruments in front of him. He doesn’t go after food so any food he’s eating has to basically be pure luck. As I was dealing with that I also noticed the engineer goby showing up less frequent for food and when he would pop out he wouldn’t really go after food as well and instead I would basically have to drop it on his head but he would still take it.

Today I finally pulled the engineer from the tank so I could feed him in quarantine and monitor him and he also appears blind. He also does a very faint rolling/pitching movement when he slowly moves around the tank but other than that he swims normally when he moves a little faster. Color actually looks great, no spots like ich, no visible flukes, no blotchy slime coat…

Naturally now I suspect it’s gotta be some parasite or virus. Maybe something in my water even? But all results I see online address blindness from damage or trauma, but both fish have clear eyes, no visible damage, no indicators of sickness. I can’t diagnose the issue and haven’t done any illness treatment before.

Has anyone seen anything like this? Is there any generic treatment I can do for them in quarantine? I read that maracyn is a good catch-all when one is unsure what the sickness could be, would you start with that?

Parameters:
Ammonia 0
Nitrite 0
Nitrate 13.6
Salt 1.023
Alk 8.6
PH 8.1
Temp 78
Phos 0.43
Cal 450
Mag 1140

I’ve had chronic high nitrate and phosphate for the last year. Got them down to about 5 and 0.3 respectively after setting up a skimmer and doing a round of phosguard. I need to re-up the phosguard soon to keep it dropping consistently. Tank was bought off a guy with the entire setup last May and my background is freshwater and it’s FOWLR so I only ever really tested for ammonia/no3/no4 so when I finally got serious about testing the full suite with good test kits I was alarmed at the phosphate and have been working on it aggressively.

Rest of my stock is just a blue spot puffer and a single clown right now.

Thanks for any help

Edit: added info: yes I use RODI, I do a weekly 20gal change as I’ve been working on dropping phosphate. System is a 90gal with 15gal sump, tons of live rock and deep sand bed.

Welcome to Reef2Reef!

I don't see any issues with your water quality - and then, if it was really out of whack, it would be causing issues with most all of the animals, including invertebrates.

"Blindness" can be difficult to diagnose - many ill fish will "act" blind as they go downhill. I've never seen blindness seem contagious - that is, affecting a group of fish. For me, it always seems to be a single fish at a time. Here is an article I wrote on fish's eyes:

https://reefs.com/magazine/aquarium-fish-the-eyes-have-it-a-review-of-eye-health-in-aquarium-fishes/

 

[Willow59]

Ryan of Prestige Reef (YouTube) had an angel that appeared blind. He did a freshwater dip and it ended up being flukes on the eyes that he couldn’t see on the fish.

 

[Longball]

Today I pulled the dottyback and put him in with the goby. He’s definitely getting worse. I then dosed with the prescribed amount of Rally Pro after reading it is also a gram negative antibiotic like Myacin 2.

Here’s how they look right now 10pm
Crashing into things and goby does like a body roll as he swims

 

[AstroMelly]

Hi. This sounds quite traumatic. I can only help you giving some advice on uploading videos I’m afraid. If you create yourself a YouTube account and upload the videos that that and then post a link to the videos here it works much better. You can set the videos you upload to only be visible to those who have the link if you prefer. It’s pretty simple but if you have any issues DM me and I will help.

Uploading from your iPhone does not appear to work (not for me anyway).

I wish you the very best of luck.

 

[Longball]

Thanks @AstroMelly



Here's a link on YouTube; anyone seen this before?? My LFS - owner is very knowledgeable reefkeeper specialist so I take his feedback seriously - is suggesting they're not necessarily blind but just not feeling good so they're not navigating smoothly like they usually would be.

You can see Goby just ram straight into a wall and recoil from the impact. Dottyback has done this so much that as I mentioned his jaw is damaged. I feel awful seeing it happen.

 

[AstroMelly]

Thanks @AstroMelly



Here's a link on YouTube; anyone seen this before?? My LFS - owner is very knowledgeable reefkeeper specialist so I take his feedback seriously - is suggesting they're not necessarily blind but just not feeling good so they're not navigating smoothly like they usually would be.

You can see Goby just ram straight into a wall and recoil from the impact. Dottyback has done this so much that as I mentioned his jaw is damaged. I feel awful seeing it happen.

No problem. Glad I could help. Upload your earlier videos if you can?

 

[Longball]

Update: lost the dottyback today. 3 days of treatment and no improvement from goby. No eating, I’ll do a 50% water change in the qt tank today and start another 3 day round of treatment. No other ideas what to do…

 

[Jay Hemdal Verified Community Expert]

Update: lost the dottyback today. 3 days of treatment and no improvement from goby. No eating, I’ll do a 50% water change in the qt tank today and start another 3 day round of treatment. No other ideas what to do…

There must be something else going on because by itself, clinical blindness isn't fatal (unless the fish don't get enough food, and it hasn't been long enough for that to be an issue).

The problem with Maracyn II is that it is Minocycline. All of that group of antibiotic are at least partially deactivated by calcium in the water. Additionally, we don't even know if this is a bacterial issue.

 

[Longball]

Jay, it has definitely been long enough for the fish to die of starvation - the dottyback has had this issue for near a month, and the goby is going on 3+ weeks since I last saw him eat. Needless to say I'm worried he's next; he would not take food yesterday even when I touched it to his mouth. I definitely suspect he's really not feeling well and his appetite is gone, blindness aside.

I'm not dosing Maracyn by the way, I'm dosing Rally Pro as it appears to be a comparable wide ranging treatment option based on its description and is also a gram-negative antibiotic which I had read is the main benefit of Maracyn II. I note what you're saying about calcium negating the effects of that group of medicines though. Perhaps that's also happening and my treatment isn't treating much after all.

I worry every day that I get home from work that he'll be a goner. I just can't see any symptoms that give me that "aha" moment where I can say for certain what it is. Even to yesterday afternoon the goby's color is still good, I see no visible spots (ruling out ich and velvet), no flukes, no slime coat issues or mucous build up (ruling out brook), no difficulty swimming (ruling out swim bladder issues)...

Only new data point is that yesterday when I was trying to get food in front of him I did touch him with my finger and he reacted by rolling like a barrel roll. He did a few of those then swam away and hid under a rock. I suspected that was just reaction to being touched as he is blind so he would've not seen it approaching. I did NOT chalk this up to a swim bladder issue which I know can manifest similarly, because again he's moving around pretty normally without issues.

 

[Jay Hemdal Verified Community Expert]

Jay, it has definitely been long enough for the fish to die of starvation - the dottyback has had this issue for near a month, and the goby is going on 3+ weeks since I last saw him eat. Needless to say I'm worried he's next; he would not take food yesterday even when I touched it to his mouth. I definitely suspect he's really not feeling well and his appetite is gone, blindness aside.

I'm not dosing Maracyn by the way, I'm dosing Rally Pro as it appears to be a comparable wide ranging treatment option based on its description and is also a gram-negative antibiotic which I had read is the main benefit of Maracyn II. I note what you're saying about calcium negating the effects of that group of medicines though. Perhaps that's also happening and my treatment isn't treating much after all.

I worry every day that I get home from work that he'll be a goner. I just can't see any symptoms that give me that "aha" moment where I can say for certain what it is. Even to yesterday afternoon the goby's color is still good, I see no visible spots (ruling out ich and velvet), no flukes, no slime coat issues or mucous build up (ruling out brook), no difficulty swimming (ruling out swim bladder issues)...

Only new data point is that yesterday when I was trying to get food in front of him I did touch him with my finger and he reacted by rolling like a barrel roll. He did a few of those then swam away and hid under a rock. I suspected that was just reaction to being touched as he is blind so he would've not seen it approaching. I did NOT chalk this up to a swim bladder issue which I know can manifest similarly, because again he's moving around pretty normally without issues.

I’m fairly certain that convict blennies don’t have swim bladders, so you can rule that out.

Sorry - not sure what to tell you here…..

 

[Longball]

Thanks for engaging with my post Jay, it's an unfortunate situation so I am just hoping my casting a "wide net" for treatment will improve the situation.

I'm left to wonder if the true answer is that the cycle of bullying from my damsels just stressed these two fish out too much to recover from and now it's a negative feedback loop.