I know this is now an 'old thread' but I thought I would provide an update on our tilefish pair.
Firstly thanks to all who contributed to the previous saga where poor Winky was not eating. To be honest looking back at the thread I am amazed how long she stayed with us - I'm almost certain she ate nothing while in our care.
So now to the new(er) tilefish and Tinky who is the 'other' of the original pair.
The main thing to note about these two fish is just how different their behaviour is. Almost from the get-go the new fish was bobbing almost constantly at the surface throughout daylight hours. He was also almost as constantly trying to get as much of the aquarium water out of the tank and onto the floor as he possibly could. With this is mind he quickly obtained the name 'Spitty'. Among others... Tinky on the other hand is a model citizen and would even appear to be telling Spitty to stop what he was doing, We quickly formed the opinion that Tinky is a female and Spitty is a male but that is pure speculation.
Now we are fish keepers and quite prepared to support a fish with bad habits but after maybe 2 months (about 2-3 weeks ago), we spotted Tinky had a single swollen eye. We did some research and concluded that she had probably scraped it on the rockwork or banzai-ed into something when doing a speed run. After a few days the swelling seemed to be going down. However a couple of days later her eye had come up again - and the other one also seemed to be swollen. A few days later it was getting worse and then - purely by chance - we noticed Spitty grab her swollen eye in his mouth and start pulling on it/her.
Immediately we decided the injury was more than likely due to fish on fish aggression even though we had never seen this type of behaviour out in the open before. Likely he was picking on her while they were sharing the same shelter at night. It's also possible that the injury was sustained and the change in appearance provoked the attacks which of course worsened her condition but I feel this is less likely.
Luckily we have a 6ft tank directly opposite the 3ft that the tilefish were in and catching these fish is very easy as they are complete gannets. I got Spitty in a clear container with a couple of mysis - he just swam in. I lifted the container and covered it well with a clear lid and transferred him to the 6ft.
We also started calling him Asbo at this point (for non-brits this is a common acronym - it stands for Anti-Social Behavioural Order - Google it). This was about 10 days ago. He has integrated well in the new tank and is being kept in his place by the general population which includes several 6 inch plus fish. He actually seems to be more subdued and although he is still spitting, he seems to be doing it less often.
I am also pleased to report that although Tinky at her worst seemed to have lost most of her sight, which I am inferring due to her adapted eating habits at the time, she now seems to be well on the road to recovery. Her left eye (which was the worst) is still swollen, but nowhere near as bad as it was. Her right is almost completely back to normal. It seems her sight is still good enough for her to eat normally. When she was bad she was hoovering the substrate. We targeted with good quality mysis, drained and soaked in Selcon.
Thanks to
@Jay Hemdal for the posts I found relating to popeye and eye scrapes - where he informed us that a clear swelling would likely not be bacterial in nature and could possibly resolve itself in time. Knowing the stress a move could result in and the fact that the fish was still eating, we decided separation of the fish (which we could easily accomplish) and monitoring, combined with a vitamin supplemented diet was the way forward. We also are at a disadvantage when it comes to antibiotic treatment options here in the UK.
Here are some shots I managed to grab.
This was exactly 9 days ago (I think it might have been the same night we moved Spitty).
And this is now.
