can fish go blind randomly?

hi everyone. I noticed about a month ago that my helfrinchi firefish was swimming strangely. I thought maybe he had some sort of swim bladder problem. Then a couple of weeks in he changed his normal hang out, moving towards the back of the tank, and I thought maybe he had problems with my yellow watchman and they had been in a fight. Now he is back to his old cave, and his swimming has improved some. He is having problems eating. He will swim right up to the food, and then past it. I just saw him bump into another fish looking for food. Earlier when I was trying to net something that was floating around he didn't even avoid the net. I could have caught him.
Is it possible he has gone blind? Besides being very thin he isn't showing any signs of disease, and none of my other fish seem to be affected. Is there anything I can do to help him? Thank you

 

I'm sure it's possible! Sometimes fish can see the reflection of the food in the glass to make them "mis-fire" when going for food so it's hard to say what's going on here. May have an illness going on here and that seems very likely from your description of the problem, may want to pull him out and quarantine him for a while if possible and maybe treat with an antibiotic medication just to be sure. Best advice I can think of to help the poor guy out. Is the fish showing any other signs of any kind of disease?

 

I am sure fish do go blind for unknown reasons, but your fish sounds very sick. Being very thin is not a good sign. If you have a QT I would move him over and treat for internal parasites. Unfortunately your fish sounds like it's in poor shape.

Good luck

 

Do you have a black light on the tank?

 

For what its worth my copperband had to retrain his "hunting" skills. Meaning this is an animal whos feeding habbits differ (aside when he picks at the rock work\sandbed) in the wild than in our aquariums. Many times he would dart to catch food suspended in the water and miss till he finally got good at it.

I agree with corailline though something else is up.

 

And for the record its always a trip to hear the "click click click" sound his teeth/mouth makes as he chews or breaks down the food

 

Few questions: Could you provide a picture and if possible a video? What are your water parameters? Has there been any major changes to the tank? Any new livestock?

As suggested, QT the fish if that is possible.

 

Maybe I am out of turn and shouldnt speak for dsmerf214, but I dont think so. I just read through the tank build and seems like a well built tank.

 

Thanks everyone for your answers.

mikejrice, no I don't have a black light. we use an AI vega.

I have had this fish for over a year with no problems at all. He has eaten fine since I got him and grown too. Besides the stuff I said above he shows no signs of disease.

When all this started no changes had been made to the tank. A couple of weeks ago we started with a GFO reactor, but I don't think it has anything to do with this. The last fish was added at least 5 months ago (the mentioned yellow watchman). He has showed no signs of disease and tripled in size. The fire fish doesn't seem to have any problems with my other fish, that I have seen at least.

As of a few days ago all of my params have been in check, and have been, with the exception of phosphates which were at .05 but are now reading 0 on my hanna checker. We do 10% water changes weekly.

I haven't seen him yet today (not unusual, he likes to sleep in) but I'll try to include a picture when he comes out.

I have a 2 gal tank in the closet. Would that work for a quarantine? Is there anything special I would have to do to set it up?

 

i couldn't really get a good pic, but heres the best one