Tilefish injured eye

[christinna77]

Hi fish medics!

Apologies for another post. I'm just making sure I'm not missing anything here.

Sushi injured himself overnight, most likely while digging a burrow. He always goes under the rocks, in and out, and I guess this time he somehow managed to scratch his eye. I noticed it yesterday morning, but he looked pretty uncomfortable and wouldn't come out for the camera.

Today he's very active again, eating and mostly seems back to normal, but he still looks a bit uncomfortable.

I took a video and some stills just in case there's anything else I should worry about. My current plan is to wait and hope it resolves on its own, with some extra feedings and good water quality. Catching him and treating him in a separate tank would be extremely stressful, so I don't wanna go there unless 100% necessary. Only one eye is affected, the eye itself looks clear, and there are no other symptoms.

I'd love to know if my plan sounds solid or if you see anything concerning in the video. Thank you!

 

[vetteguy53081]

Hi fish medics!

Apologies for another post. I'm just making sure I'm not missing anything here.

Sushi injured himself overnight, most likely while digging a burrow. He always goes under the rocks, in and out, and I guess this time he somehow managed to scratch his eye. I noticed it yesterday morning, but he looked pretty uncomfortable and wouldn't come out for the camera.

Today he's very active again, eating and mostly seems back to normal, but he still looks a bit uncomfortable.

I took a video and some stills just in case there's anything else I should worry about. My current plan is to wait and hope it resolves on its own, with some extra feedings and good water quality. Catching him and treating him in a separate tank would be extremely stressful, so I don't wanna go there unless 100% necessary. Only one eye is affected, the eye itself looks clear, and there are no other symptoms.

I'd love to know if my plan sounds solid or if you see anything concerning in the video. Thank you!

Likely an injury
Treat with Maracyn, not Maracyn 2

 

[Jay Hemdal Verified Community Expert]

Hi fish medics!

Apologies for another post. I'm just making sure I'm not missing anything here.

Sushi injured himself overnight, most likely while digging a burrow. He always goes under the rocks, in and out, and I guess this time he somehow managed to scratch his eye. I noticed it yesterday morning, but he looked pretty uncomfortable and wouldn't come out for the camera.

Today he's very active again, eating and mostly seems back to normal, but he still looks a bit uncomfortable.

I took a video and some stills just in case there's anything else I should worry about. My current plan is to wait and hope it resolves on its own, with some extra feedings and good water quality. Catching him and treating him in a separate tank would be extremely stressful, so I don't wanna go there unless 100% necessary. Only one eye is affected, the eye itself looks clear, and there are no other symptoms.

I'd love to know if my plan sounds solid or if you see anything concerning in the video. Thank you!

It does look like a strike injury. I agree, leaving it alone is probably the best course of action here. I don't seen any sign of infection (yet). Watch for increasing redness, opaque whiteness, increased swelling, etc.

What can happen with these sorts of injuries is that gas builds up behind the eye. Antibiotics won't help with that. Sushi seems to be swimming head down. Has it always done that? It could be that it is trying to offset the buoyancy caused by gas behind the eye.

 

[winxp_man]

Unless you have bad water quality, and I do mean bad. Leaving the fish be for now works. Had a flame angles in a small tank once. Just holding it there till some other fish I was QT’ing were done with QT so I can put them all in the DT at the same time. This tank had a few large bristles and only a 20 g. So the flame decided to sleep in an area where the worms were also packed in. They must have nipped at his eye. Being I didn’t put much for food in that tank.

Do the water was not the greatest and the eye got infected. I thought he was going to lose it due to bacterial infection. I took him out in the QT with the other fish. Kanaplexed the tank four-five days later he started to heal. You couldn’t even tell he had eye issues.

But Maracyn as vette said can also work. Give it a few days though a see how it turns out to do. For me it went bad. So meds it was.

 

[christinna77]

Likely an injury
Treat with Maracyn, not Maracyn 2

If I do have to treat, I only have Kanaplex, Neoplex and Eryhromycin on hand. I don't think I can get Macaryn. Would any of these work?

 

[winxp_man]

Maracyn contains Eryhromycin. So that will work. I don’t know dose amounts for pure Eryhromycin, if that’s what you have on hand. I usually keep Maracyn in my med stash.

Eryhromycin Is the eye med.



Edit found this from @jay in 2023. Unless it has changed I can’t say much. It’s why I’m tagging him. He can give a better response on the dosing amounts.
——————————————-
If you are using pure Erythromycin, bulk powder, I would dose it at 12.5 mg/gallon, which is the value I use for large scale cyanobacteria control, and I know it is safe for a variety of fish.

Jay-

 

[christinna77]

It does look like a strike injury. I agree, leaving it alone is probably the best course of action here. I don't seen any sign of infection (yet). Watch for increasing redness, opaque whiteness, increased swelling, etc.

What can happen with these sorts of injuries is that gas builds up behind the eye. Antibiotics won't help with that. Sushi seems to be swimming head down. Has it always done that? It could be that it is trying to offset the buoyancy caused by gas behind the eye.

Thank you for your reply as always! His eye actually looks a bit better today, I think. Yesterday he wouldn't even come out, today he's been out a lot.

I think he's sometimes angled a bit down like that when swimming. I see it with my other tilefish too, they hover with their heads down often too. I wonder if it's perhaps a tilefish thing.

Here's a video from 6 months ago:

 

[winxp_man]

Thank you for your reply as always! His eye actually looks a bit better today, I think. Yesterday he wouldn't even come out, today he's been out a lot.

I think he's sometimes angled a bit down like that when swimming. I see it with my other tilefish too, they hover with their heads down often too. I wonder if it's perhaps a tilefish thing.

Here's a video from 6 months ago:

Bacterial issues is where I would start using meds. But keep an eye on the fish and get some quality food to eat.



Just finished watching the video. It’s looking good in the road to a good recovery.

 

[christinna77]

Maracyn contains Eryhromycin. So that will work. I don’t know dose amounts for pure Eryhromycin, if that’s what you have on hand. I usually keep Maracyn in my med stash.

Eryhromycin Is the eye med.



Edit found this from @jay in 2023. Unless it has changed I can’t say much. It’s why I’m tagging him. He can give a better response on the dosing amounts.
——————————————-
If you are using pure Erythromycin, bulk powder, I would dose it at 12.5 mg/gallon, which is the value I use for large scale cyanobacteria control, and I know it is safe for a variety of fish.

Jay-

Thank you! It's this one. I'll keep that in mind in case I need to move him.

 

[christinna77]

Bacterial issues is where I would start using meds. But keep an eye on the fish and get some quality food to eat.

He's fed 4 times a day with a frozen mix: LRS reef frenzy, mysis, spirulina brine, plankton, calanus, and whatever else I usually have on hand. He also gets a mix of around 10 different dried foods including TDO chroma boost, once a day. So hopefully his immune system is strong enough to fight it off.

I did a WC yesterday too and I watch him like a hawk all day, telling him he's a good fishie and how bad I feel for him. I could never be a vet...

 

[vetteguy53081]

If I do have to treat, I only have Kanaplex, Neoplex and Eryhromycin on hand. I don't think I can get Macaryn. Would any of these work?

Kanaplex will also work . Maracyn as pictured very effective

 

[christinna77]

I noticed something interesting today. Sushi stopped coming out as much when the lights were fully on. As soon as I turned them off completely, he went back to swimming around all the time. I think he's photosensitive because of his injured eye, so I'm going to shorten the light cycle for the next few days to let him rest a bit.

 

[christinna77]

Here's where we are on day 5. Apologies for the dirty glass. It's the back part of the tank which I leave my CUC to clean.



I'm not sure I see much improvement, but it's definitely not getting worse and he's acting mostly normal. The only things I've noticed since the injury are that he still seems a bit photosensitive. He's out a lot before lights on, then not much during peak lighting and then out again after lights out.

Also, at first he wouldn't come out to eat unless I left the room after feeding. He'd also swim away when I got too close to the tank, almost as if he didn't recognize me anymore. But that has been slowly improving too.

 

[christinna77]

More updates: Sushi seems to be recovering well, and started coming out during lights on too now. Very happy he's doing better.

 

[christinna77]

Final update: Sushi seems to be pretty much recovered :)