The Puffer Forum

One of the two gsps I have in my 55 gallon marine tank has a cloudy, apparently swollen eye.

does not show other signs of stress, but the eye worries me. Just recently added a soft coral to my tank. (a small kenya tree)

I will search for what this is a sign of online but i figured that this site tends to give more direct answers.

It is common for GSPs to get cloudy eyes but you should answer the Qs above in red, just to be sure it isn't a water quality issue. A large water change followed by teatment with Melafix, should clear that right up.

did a 25% change yesterday, after reading nitrite levels between .25 and zero.
nitrate levels were in the 0-20 range , which is consistant with tap unfortunately.

55 gal w/ 2 gsp, a bunch of live rock, a coral banded, a hermit, and some small blue legged hermits and nars snails.
and a goby (diamond goby)

also, new to the tank I added a couple bits of kenya tree, and a small green polyp coral.

feed once a day a cube of bloodworms or mysis shrimp or marine cuisine. skipping one day every 5th day. occational baby dried shrimp. water change 25% on fridays.
products - prime, instant ocean salt, and added epsom salt per the other one being constipated (turns out he ate one of the little blue legged)

changes were adding the corals on sunday night, and putting some additional cheato in their tank (cheato contained little pods that they like to attack.) Goby was added about a week ago after being separated and observed.

tank has been up a little while, but the tank I seeded it from was running for several months.



ALSO; eye is cloudy still with a couple of little white lines on it now. I cant tell if the lens has been torn by say a bite, or if these are some kind of parasite hanging on it. Whatever it is it is one the outside of the eye while cloudiness is on the inside.

One other thing, on noticing the eye problem, I attempted to get him into a container to move him to a separate tank for observation away from other tankmates, and he managed to jump out of the tank top, inflate, and then land back in the water looking dazed or dead, I did manage to "burp" him and he seems generally happy, belly pretty much white, but when I put him in the other tank he freaks out. SO I have left him in the main tank to keep him from getting too stressed.

I was curious if it was possible that the crab or the other puffer lanced his eye, but would it still maintain a round appearance, or would it.. deflate..?

Whew, that was a lucky jump! It is very possible the puffer went after the crab & the crab defended itself (can't blame the lil fella).

With corals, I'm assuming the tank is SW. Do you have live rock & a protein skimmer for that tank? What's the SG? You can tstill reat with Melafix but turn off the skimmer, if you have one.

Treat with Melafix as PufferPunk said. When you have one cloudy, swollen eye 97% of the time it is due to an injury and not infection. If both eyes were cloudy then you would have more to worry about. Puffers are clumsy sometimes and will get lacerations from decor or being too curious with other tank mates.

Ok, definitely going to have to get the melafix

Melafix is great stuff - my GSP got a cloudy eye and a white patch on her dorsal fin once, and while it took a while for the spot to disappear (about a week and a half), it cleared up her eye in maybe two days.

as with any medication, do I need to remove carbon filtration?

Yup