Our mission

What happened to my male anthias's eye?? (Looking 110% better!!)

goldielocke76

Supporting Member
So, came home tonight from winter session and looked at my tank. I noticed that my lyretail anthias has something wrong with his eye, looks like he got poked or something. He was fine yesterday, so I am not sure what could have happened to make it look like this:

IMG_1428_zpsedd65126.jpg


IMG_1423_zpsefdf20cb.jpg


IMG_1422_zpsf7ae0496.jpg



Any advice is much appreciated. Any idea what this is, and what could have caused it????
 
Looks like bristle worm bristles.

Either it heals and is fine, or it looses sight and is still fine :) Not much you can do for it at this point other then feed it well.
 
You know, dammit. I'm really beginning to think that that is what happened to my tiniest female anthias too. And now possibly, my firefish.

Best remedy for bristleworms?? Arrow crabs? Dammit, that irritates me, and makes me sick. He's eating, pellets and frozen. I hope it stays that way...

Thanks guys for your quick responses
 
I've seen the bristle worms come out every now and then, especially when the sand has been removed by the sand sifter. I guess I should have got the tongs and ripped it out of the tank. =/
 
IT's easy to bait them out. Stick some krill/fish food into some wadded up bridle vail so that it takes a long time to enter/leave. Toss in the tank just before lights out and check on it in a few hours, and again in the AM. a couple weeks of this, all the big ones will be gone.

I have a feeling you may have one of the nastier bristle worms not normally seen :(
 
BAYMAC said:
Stick some krill/fish food into some wadded up bridle vail so that it takes a long time to enter/leave.

"Honey, why is my grandmother's heirloom bridal veil in your aquarium?" :bigsmile:

Brandie, are you able to isolate the anthias into QT to allow it to recover?
 
I'm going to have to trap him, then put him in a 10g. I'm afraid if I net him, it will aggravate his injury because of the bristles sticking out. Wish I had some finquel so I could tranq him and pluck our bristles.

I wonder if sw melafix would help him...

What is a bridle vail? I cut the tip off a baby bottle and inverted the nipple into the bottle and baited it with food. I'm hoping trap a few. I am really beginning to think that the bristleworm has claimed a few of my smaller fish.... Dammit.
 
Bridal veil is just a fine mesh... you know the stuff at weddings they wrap around almonds, or rice, and give out to people with a bow on it?

OK OK, a bathroom scrunchy, you gotta know what one of those is :) That material. You could even use one of those. The idea is to make them have to travel around and around to get to the bait so that you have time to get to them without them taking off, and they won't fall out when taking the material out.

Clove oil knocks fish out, but can kill em as well. My ms-222 (finquil) is WAY out of date by a decade, otherwise I'd offer you it.

The baby bottle should work, perhaps use a few of them?
 
Ah ok, I now I understand David's reply. I thought that might be what you meant, but since I know there's still lots of tricks of the trade out there that I do not know about yet, I wanted to err on the side of caution and ask.

I have clove oil but am loathe to use it. I heard from the puffer forum (sometimes people need to trim teeth on their puffers) that it can cause permanent brain damage, and I don't want to take a chance. I bought it more as a euthanasia than anything else. I don't have the heart to use a pair of scissors or bang a bag against the counter :'(

Baby bottle is still empty as of this morning. I used a plastic one, and it floats, so I am thinking of maybe getting some glass ones. Idk, we will see. I may try the scrunchy way first.

Now I gotta think about getting him out of the tank >.< and see if I can't track some finquil down. I have the melafix, but I don't see it healing with the bristles still in there. When I got stung, I had to pick the bristles out, and even then, it hurt for like a week. My poor dude, it's in his eye and I only got stung on my finger...
 
My dentist and a ton of other dentists use clove oil, and ton of fish collectors as well. The brain damage bit is from using too much, which ms-222 could do if you use too much :)

To euthanize, just WAY overdose with clove oil, but i don;t think you need to go that far. The worst that will happen will it will loose its eye, I highly doubt it would die from that. Fish can live a normal life with only one eye. They tend to face you with only the good eye, so you won;t notice either :lol:
 
Apon said:
FYI - my dottybacks have done a good job of eating the smaller bristle worms.


I've thought about it, but, I think this worm is big enough to wear it's eating smaller fish. My tiniest female anthias, who was also the chubbiest, and most personable one, fell to him first I think. It doesn't make any sense that she can be perfectly healthy and happy one day, and just gone the next. She was about an inch and a half long, maybe pushing two inches. I'm afraid if I get something along those lines size wise, that they'd become dinner :'( I mean, both my firefish are MIA now too. And all three of those fish like to hide out under the rocks, and we have seen a bristle worm under the same darn rocks. I don't want to keep feeding him $$$ = /
 
BAYMAC said:
My dentist and a ton of other dentists use clove oil, and ton of fish collectors as well. The brain damage bit is from using too much, which ms-222 could do if you use too much :)

To euthanize, just WAY overdose with clove oil, but i don;t think you need to go that far. The worst that will happen will it will loose its eye, I highly doubt it would die from that. Fish can live a normal life with only one eye. They tend to face you with only the good eye, so you won;t notice either :lol:


Ok, so, if I decide to use the clove oil, how many drops to knock him out without hurting him? I've never used it to do nothing but euthanize, so I'm a little nervous, but, I don't want him to suffer either. He's lost some of the bristles, so he looks much better today, but, I think for him to heal completely, they will need to come out. LoL, and I think he can see, he flinches on both sides haha. My only concern is his unnecessary pain.
 
Update:

Male is still eating, but I am not sure how well he eats after his eye goes :'( it gets bigger and bigger every day, and it looks like it's going to pop. I feel so bad. If it goes and he doesn't do well, I may just use some clove oil on him and let him go peacefully. If he does survive, he will never see out of it again or he won't have an eye.

This. Means. War.

Thinking about doing something along the lines of what Baymac said, since the bottle didn't produce any results. Going to get some shrimp and nylon, and try my luck.
 
I've seen popeye caused by bacterial infection treated with kanamycin. Any luck trapping and QTing the little guy?

When you euthanize, do you mix the clove oil with water and shake it up to make the clove oil miscible (cloudy white solution)? I use 5 drops clove oil in a 30mL (1oz) container. In a quart-sized container, about 10mL of this solution will make the fishes I work with lie on their side, although gill movement (roughly 30 bpm) is still evident. If I were performing fish surgery, this is the state I would want them in, FWIW.
 
I did a quick google search on popeye, and I am tentatively following this, since as of right now, the male seems to be doing great, other than the fact he's got pop eye

"Eye Trauma - Trauma to the eye is usually the reason a fish has this condition when only one eye is affected. Eye trauma can be attributed to a scratch, scrape of bruise to the eye from encounters such as fighting with other fish, net abrasion, or coming into contact with a stationary object or organism in the aquarium, and may be bacterial or fungal in nature as well. In most cases where popeye occurs from eye trauma, the unsightly looking eye does not seem to affect the fish's overall good health. The fish appears to be healthy, its appetite has not diminished, and more than likely all tank readings will be normal. **My edit** Since he did have bristles sticking out of his eye, I am going to assume that as of right now, it is not bacterial or fungal related. Damn fish is still trying to spawn with the female that's in there!)

Treatment - In cases where eye trauma is involved it is suggested to not remove the fish from the aquarium, unless harassment from other fishes is becoming a threat. Handling of the fish can cause further irritation to the eye, as well as additional trauma. In most minor cases the injury will heal in time as the condition is allowed to run its course. To help aid in the continued health and healing of the fish during the course of this condition, oral feedings of foods soaked in selcon or another type of liquid vitamin, along with foods mixed with a broad spectrum antibiotic such as tetracycline, chloramphenicol or kanamycin are suggested. Eventually the eye will deflate, but may result in various conclusions."

This is what I hope happens. I hope that since water quality is not a problem, and he's eating anything and everything I put in the tank, I hope his eye deflates and he gets better. As of right now, his activity is good, no lethargy, so I am going to assume that it's not bacterial or fungal. If for some reason new symptoms develop, I will take him out and treat with an appropriate medication. I'm hoping though with good water quality, and a healthy immune system, a secondary infection will not occur. For now, I have left him in there, not wanting to pull him out and stress him out further. We will see. My fingers are crossed.

And yes, David, I mix up the water until it's cloudy. I also ordered some of the finquel so I have it on hand. After reading a study done by some of the people on the puffer forum, I personally can't and won't use clove oil for surgical anesthesia-- I just can't get over the thought of "what if?" especially if there is something out there made for fish anesthesia. Too many puffers exhibited signs of brain damage (running into glass, swimming in weird patterns, not recognizing their owners with food, etc) after 1-2 or 2-3 teeth trimmings where clove oil was used. Sorry, personal preference, I worry about the little stuff >.< ask Denzil. He could probably write you a book on how much stuff I worry over and this is one of those things.

Sorry for the novel of a post!! For now, I am going to keep an eye on him, and let nature take it's course.
 
Back
Top