Infected eye

I have a Blue Devilfish that has an eye infection. His left eye is bloated and he keeps scratching it against the rocks.

Is it infectious? I want to keep him but don't want any of my other fish (2 Clownfish and 1 Cardinalfish) to become ill.

I'm pretty sure it's stress induced. Did a 50% water change of the tank earlier and didn't take him out (took the other fish out though), the water that I changed was really cold so would have effected him.

 

ya as for doing water changes you really have to make sure the temp and the sg are the same as the tank. if tou dont do this you may run into problems like this.

 

Why did you do such a large water change? How big is your tank?

 

Is it popeye, it sounds like it may be. I treated my yellow tail for pop eye by treating the food with Melafix. Within a few days it cleared up. If it is in one eye, it probably means that it is not contagious, usually if it is in two eyes, the underlying problem is bacterial in nature and that can spread.

 

It's only in one eye. Pretty sure it's becuase of the water change, he's such a hard fish to catch so I left him in while I changed...didn't realise the water was going to be so cold.

Because it was filthy, water smelt gross. Haven't done a water change in over a week.

It's only a small tank, 25 liter.

 

You have too many fish for a 6 1/2 gallon tank. That could be part of it. How old is this aquarium?

 

About 6 months.

I don't think it's overstocking, the Cardinalfish was only added today. The Clowns and Blue Devilfish have been fine for months. The eye infection appeared immediately after the water change.

 

The rule I have heard was 1 inch of fish per 10 gallons of saltwater. Someone on here said it's more like 1 inch per 3-5 gallons of saltwater. Which I can tend to agree with either one. I definitely am breaking the 10 gallon rule myself.

Either way, even with the more liberal 3-5 gallon rule, you would be maxed out at 3 inches tops. It's just a very small tank. I guess if you do water changes alllllllll the time and have a good skimmer it's possible. But I would think your clowns alone would be the limit.

 

The rule I was go by as max is 1 inch per 3 gallons. So I go conservative and aim for 1 inch per 4 gallons.

WRT the Popeye. Almost always, this is just an irritation. Rarely, you will see it as a bacterial infection. The treatement is to keep params as good as possible to keep stress down. You may want to, for the short term, use garlic as kind of food dip in order to boost the immune system. Secondary bacterial infection is a possibililty.

Also, the fish may lose sight in that eye. That just depends on the severity and how much inflammation is put on the optic nerve. If optic nerve is choked off, then eyesight is a thing of the past. My yellow tail damsel got popeye a few months ago, but it wasn't too bad and he kept his sight. Very rarely will you come across a situation whereby a fish gets popeye in both eyes and loses sight in both. That has only happened once in these forums that I know of. The fish needed to be put down.

So the bottom line is popeye is more a condition than a disease state due to an irritation rather than an biological source. It does not spread. Just keep the params within limits and it will resolve on it's own in a week or so.

 

1 inch per 10 gal? That would be one tang in a 100 gal tank, and you would need an 80 gal tank to have two damsels... Show me someone who actually follows that rule and I will show you a liar. ;D

I don't consider myself over stocked and I am going by 1inch per 2 gal. of salt water. Of course I do my calculations using the adult size of the fish not the size the fish are now.