Popeye in blue hippo tang?

spookisfat · Sep 2, 2017

My blue hippo tang's eyes are swollen today. I'm hoping someone can help identify possible causes/treatments. The right eye cloudy and swollen worse, but the left is swollen just a bit as well. It wasn't like this yesterday. (Pics below)

A little backstory- I've had this fish over two years, since he was under 2" long. He started in a 55 gallon tank and then was moved into a 7' 265 gallon tank around 8 months ago when I upgraded. His growth was one of the driving factors in making the upgrade. He's now around 7-8 inches.

I have been stocking the new tank with new fish over the last few months, quarantining everyone for at least a month and being careful about what gets into the tank. I've never had ich in any of my tanks- I've successfully treated for it several times in qt with no issues. I added a blue throat trigger to the tank a little over a month ago and a couple days later he had a couple of white spots on his head for a day or two. He was a little stressed the first couple days so I was hoping maybe the spots were just some minor lesions that he had gotten from swimming against the rocks that cleared up quickly. Nevertheless, I'm concerned that ich might have never presented itself in qt and made it into the tank. Just in the last week or so the blue tang has been doing some flashing and scratching against the rocks, and now today he woke up with his eyes swollen. He's obviously stressed about something and I'm just wondering if an ich infection could present itself in this way, or what the other stressor could be.

I watch the tank closely every day and none of the other fish have shown any symptoms of any kind of stress or infection. I added a purple tang to the tank a few months ago which the blue tang was not happy about. He constantly pestered him, so I moved the purple tang out a few weeks ago and the blue tang's stress level seemed to drop off after that, but it's the only thing that has been an issue for him recently.

I did a 25 gallon water change on 8/25 and for the rest of the day the blue tang seemed a bit stressed out about it. It was that afternoon and the next day that I first noticed the erratic behavior. I had my hands, scraper, and the siphon hose in the tank a good bit and everyone usually freaks out a bit, but settle down quickly.

I don't know if it matters, but the rest of the stock is 1 porcupine puffer (9"), 1 coral beauty angel, 1 royal gramma, 3 green chromis; I've had all those for years. New additions in the last 6 months - 1 juvenile/changing blue face angel, 1 yellow longnose butterfly, 1 blue throat trigger, 1 scribbled angel; these are all in the 4-5 inch range at the moment. I don't feel like the tank is overloaded and everyone gets along well.

Sorry for the long read, just trying to throw out any information that might be helpful. I really hope someone can offer some advice. I'd really appreciate any help. This site has been a great resource for me over the years, but I've never had the need to post before.

GHsaltie · Sep 2, 2017

With both of the eyes swollen that makes me think a bacterial infection. Erythromycin is a good medicine for treating eye infections. Flukes on the eyes are another possibility, if you can catch him for a freshwater dip that will confirm/rule out flukes. I'll try to find a pic of flukes on the eye for you to compare.

GHsaltie · Sep 2, 2017

As for the ich, did you treat the trigger with anything to eliminate ich while in QT? If not I would say it's likely ich has been introduced to the tank, the blue tang will definitely be the first to show it. The blue tang flashing could be ich or if flukes are present it may be flashing because of that.

GHsaltie · Sep 2, 2017

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/eye-flukes-or-something-else.299022/

Post #5 has a pic of a fluke on the eye. I can't find the picture I was thinking of though.

spookisfat · Sep 2, 2017

I treated the trigger for 3 weeks with paraguard, which Seachem claims will kill ich. I know it's not one of the guaranteed cures, but I don't like using copper unless it's really needed. I typically go with TTM for known ich infections which has worked for me in the past. The trigger came from Diver's Den, so I tend to give them a little more benefit of the doubt than a typical lfs, although I have gotten fish with ich from DD before. I know they use a dewormer as well so I wasn't so worried about flukes. He seemed healthy so I figured with observation and the paraguard that he was good to go.

GHsaltie · Sep 2, 2017

Paraguard does not contain ingredients that will 100% eliminate ich. And even with copper you have to continue treatment for 30 days to kill ich and velvet. So we at least know now that ich was introduced via the trigger. DD does condition their fish, however they do not do any QT, so I would always recommend you treat yourself. Unfortunately it's hard to trust anyone's QT but your own.

spookisfat · Sep 2, 2017

I don't know for sure that the trigger had ich. If it had ever presented itself in qt, I would have treated more aggressively. Perhaps the trigger just wasn't stressed enough in qt for it to get enough of a foothold for him to show symptoms. Or perhaps it was suppressed for too long by DD's low dose of copper or the paragurad. Anyway, if that is what my tang is now dealing with, is it common- or at least possible for his eyes to bulge and cloud up because of it? Or is that possibly due to some other secondary infection, but still related to ich? I've never heard of those as symptoms of ich, although I've never had to deal with it with much severity. Thanks for your help. I'll probably try to catch him tonight and move him into qt and do a FW dip to test for flukes. I just want to be as confident as possible in knowing what I'm dealing with to treat effectively.

GHsaltie · Sep 2, 2017

Whether the eyes can get a bacterial infection due to the presence of ich I do not know. Doing a freshwater dip is a good start to find out whether it is an infection or flukes. There is a video in this link that can help you with that. https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/freshwater-dip.248898/
@Humblefish @melypr1985 @ngoodermuth

melypr1985 · Sep 2, 2017

GHsaltie said:
Whether the eyes can get a bacterial infection due to the presence of ich I do not know. Doing a freshwater dip is a good start to find out whether it is an infection or flukes. There is a video in this link that can help you with that. https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/freshwater-dip.248898/
@Humblefish @melypr1985 @ngoodermuth

A fish can certainly get an eye infection from having ich. It's more common with flukes, but it can happen.

Humblefish · Sep 2, 2017

I think antibiotics (specifically erythromycin) will be needed here. En route to the QT give him a 5 min FW dip to check for flukes.

spookisfat · Sep 4, 2017

Thanks so much for all your help, everyone. The fish is now in qt undergoing erythromycin treatment. I did the FW dip on the way to qt and saw no evidence of flukes, so that's good. I will continue to keep a close eye on the tank for any symptoms of ich in the other fish. Hopefully that's not what's going on, but I am reasonably well set up at the moment to pull everyone out and go fallow if I really need to. Everyone else still seems healthy and disease free. What is the likelihood that this eye infection came up on its own (injury, contamination, etc) rather than being secondary to something like ich or flukes? I've never had a fish with something like this, although I've seen similar issues plenty of times in fish at the lfs or public aquariums.

I didn't remove the tang from the tank until today and it seemed that his eyes had improved slightly each day since initially presenting on Saturday (still far from recovered though). Hopefully it clears up and he recovers well.

kevonstl · Sep 5, 2017

i would dip the fish in blue methane....good stuff to heal infection....i got success from using it

Humblefish · Sep 5, 2017

spookisfat said:
What is the likelihood that this eye infection came up on its own (injury, contamination, etc) rather than being secondary to something like ich or flukes?

IME; eye infections are fairly common because they can be triggered by a variety of reasons. Injury, flukes, a parasite trophont on/behind the eye or harmful bacteria in the water are all possibilities. Sometimes the infection clears on its own, other times antibiotics are needed. The danger with not using antibiotics is the fish often loses sight in the eye if the infection remains for too long.