Yellow Tang with pop eye after rusted blade fell in aquarium

CoralStop

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Hey guys a rusty blade I used to cut zoas fell in my aquarium and my guess it was in there for 4 hours. My chalices and candy cane died and my blastos are closed. Everything else is fine, torches Goni zoa shrooms. My yellow tang did develop pop eye though it looks pretty bad. All other fish are fine. I did a 33% water change and dosed epsom salt for the tang. This happened two days ago. One blasto colony is starting to slowly open others are still closed. Is there anything else I should do? Water levels are all good
 

GHsaltie

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Are you running anything to remove the contaminant? Carbon and poly floss like crazy. Has there been any change with the eye in the two days time? Can you get a pic?
 
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CoralStop

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I Amazon primed more carbon and I have switched out poly floss. I will get a pic tomorrow when the lights are on, thanks
 

Humblefish

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Is the popeye in one eye or both? Any cloudiness to the eye?
 

videosilva

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A rusty blade in the tank for 4 hours did all that damage ? No one here questioned that ?
 

Humblefish

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A rusty blade in the tank for 4 hours did all that damage ? No one here questioned that ?

SW corrodes pretty fast. No telling what heavy metals leached out during that time. I know chromium and iron are two components of a razor blade, and a poly filter should turn orange if iron is present in the water in too high of a concentration.
 
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CoralStop

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It's only in one eye guys, here are some pics, should I dose epsom salt again I did one tbs per 5 gallons.
 

Humblefish

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@CoralStop That eye looks infected and will probably need antibiotics (erythromycin or kanamycin) in order to treat it. But that needs to be done in a QT.

If QT is not an option for you, then your best bet would be to dose Epsom salt (1 tablespoon per 5 gallons) to help ease the swelling around the eye. And start food soaking vitamins to boost his immune system to deal with the infection: https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/vitamins-herbal-remedies.304287/
 

HB AL

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I would put a huge amount of carbon in there quick and leave it for a couple weeks at least if the rusty blade was actually the issue. If his eye gets really bad looking And not getting better with treatment I would just pull it out and super glue the socket, and just have a one eyed tang.
 

videosilva

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SW corrodes pretty fast. No telling what heavy metals leached out during that time. I know chromium and iron are two components of a razor blade, and a poly filter should turn orange if iron is present in the water in too high of a concentration.


I can see how you got your 15,000 posts :)
 

Humblefish

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If his eye gets really bad looking And not getting better with treatment I would just pull it out and super glue the socket, and just have a one eyed tang.

:eek:

I can see how you got your 15,000 posts :)

The sad part is most of them were written in this forum. So, that tells you how many diseased fish I see on a daily basis. :(
 

HB AL

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For Humblefish, I did this many years ago when I had a trigger tank and a couple had a small scuffle, the clown trigger ended up getting his eye bit pretty good by the blue line trigger, took him out and tried meds to stop infection and hope it healed but I guess it was to far gone, so I removed as much of the bad eye tissue and superglued the socket. Within a month it was totally healed over and he lived a long happy life. I've caught so many fish through out the years fishing with 1 eye and they are all completely healed and as healthy as the rest. This drastic measure would be a last resort option.
 

Humblefish

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For Humblefish, I did this many years ago when I had a trigger tank and a couple had a small scuffle, the clown trigger ended up getting his eye bit pretty good by the blue line trigger, took him out and tried meds to stop infection and hope it healed but I guess it was to far gone, so I removed as much of the bad eye tissue and superglued the socket. Within a month it was totally healed over and he lived a long happy life. I've caught so many fish through out the years fishing with 1 eye and they are all completely healed and as healthy as the rest. This drastic measure would be a last resort option.

Interesting. But I wonder if applying a topical antibiotic (Bio-Bandage) to the socket would be a better strategy to ward off a potential infection.
 

HB AL

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Interesting. But I wonder if applying a topical antibiotic (Bio-Bandage) to the socket would be a better strategy to ward off a potential infection.
Could be but it's not like I yank eyes out of fish on a regular basais, I did do it a little more often when a trigger would lose a chunk of skin from a tussle to stop the bleeding and an infection from starting, when I felt it better for the fish to stay in th Display tank versus setting up a smaller tank and moving him to an unknown environment. Although they would have a scar left over, this method worked 100% .
 

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