The Puffer Forum

I recently purchased a baby GSP (he is about an inch right now minus his tiny tail) from my lfs. He looked fine until i got him home, then i began to notice that his left eye looked red (a redish orange color) at first i thought he had 2 different colored eyes, maybe even something wrong with the one eye. now i'm starting to actually think the eye is MISSING and what i see is the socket that looks like an eye. he won't stay still long enough for me to get a good look but i managed to snap a quick picture. You can see his "GOOD" eye in the reflection of the tank wall. Anyone seen anything like this before? He is in a 20 gallon tank (moving an an 80 once its cycled completely) and eats and gets around just fine as far as i can tell...i just want to be sure it's not an injury in need of treatment as I've only had him for 6 days!!!



Thanks!!!

Hard to tell...post more pics please

This little guy is probably suffering from poor water quality, which (bad news) is probably due to a mini-cycle, or to a full cycle, depending on the way that you cycled the tank. However (good news), this is easy to treat. Do water changes! The reason that I'm chalking this symptom up to water quality is that ammonia in the water often causes a cloudy eye, which is what you're probably seeing. Aside from water changes, Melafix would help, too.

Please answer all of the questions in red, so that we can tell whether this is the problem.

If you haven't yet read the article in the Library on GSPs, go check it out. It's got tons of good info.

What care directions did the LFS give you?

Cloudy eye is a typical symptom of a bacterial infection, which can be sparked off by stress. It's not to do with ammonia per se though if your tank has high ammonia levels your puffer will be stressed. You need to treat with Pimafix, not Melafix, in that instance. This is, of course, if the eye isn't missing - hard to tell from the photo.

First though: what are the tank params? Please read the text in red at the top and follow the instructions.
Second: can you try and get another few pictures to post up? We could take a better look then to see if it's damaged, cloudy, or just plain missing.

Whatever you use to treat, good water quality would be the main factor in clearing a cloudy eye and preventing it from happening again.

Sorry about that guys, I whipped out the better camera for some pics today. Also,

20 gallon tank: PH-7.8, Ammonia-0, Nitrites-0, Nitrates - 80 ppm...so my levels are good (also slowly bringing them brackist .002ppms per week. but just starting as 1. i've only had them 6 days and 2. they came from completely freshwater tanks (ugh, glad I could save them though!).

Here are the better pics. It does appear that he has the LENSE over his eye, it look slightly like pop eye but the inside of the eye is what is perplexing me!

Also, it is not a cloudy eye, I know that much, it may appear a little clouded in the middle because of my flash, but I am failry sure that isn't what is going on here!

OOPS, also...I'm not sure the conditions of the LPS that I got the puffer from. All I know is that the were in a freshwater tank and that the store had just gotten them...Unfortunately I didn't notice the eye until I had the puffer home in my tank (which was fishless cycled for over 30 days and the levels had been completely stable for weeks before I put the fish in, so I'm fairly certain it didn't happen after like 5 minutes in my tank he was there before I noticed the eye, it was literally instantly upon his release into my tank that I saw the eye).

I haven't attempted to put melaxfix or anything in the tank as of yet, because he seems to be a happy little fellow and I don't want to treat him if this is just a birth defect or an old wound that is now healed. It looks like the IRIS is damanged (it looks rigid) but that the actual lense surrounding it is still intact (looks a little swollen, but not like the "true pop eye" i've seen?


Thanks!

PufferChick
-Ashley

I see no infection--it looks like a birth defect to me. Like some sort of cataract. Just keep the water as pristine as possible, get him in BW & treat with Melafix, just in case.

Yep, it's unusual, almost looks like a corneal edema or an ulcer of some sort possibly but I'm not sure.

That looks congenital to me, blind in that eye since birth. The reflection from the retina looks like there is a lack of blood flow and the pupil is oblong in a way that looks like there was a loss muscle control. Shouldn't be a big deal for him.

80ppm is really, really high for nitrates. Try to keep them below 20. Glad to hear he's well!

Thanks all! I have done a few water changes in the past few days and got the nitrates down from 80PPMs to 20PPMS as recommended and am slowly going brackish (i've been doing about a gallons worth of water changing a day, replacing the old water with a solution of 1 gallon of water and 1 teaspoon of instant ocean that i've mixed and left sit for 24 hours (correct me if i'm wrong, but i'm trying to do .002 ppms per week, measuring with a hydrometer). I have started a 7 day melafix treatment just in case of any infection in the eye, but the little guy looks to be just fine.

I appreciate everyones input!!!

Sounds like you're well on your way to a happy puffer! Just remember, the SG doesn't have to increase by .002 per week it can go by less. When I was using a hydrometer I'd aim to go up by .001, sometimes a just by the 1/2 teaspoon full. Going over the .002 mark when raising can cause problems and trying to hit the mark exactly with a hydrometer can be pretty tricky, there's a lot of variables to a hydrometers accuracy.

Sounds great! Yay!

Shakespeare's blind eye still has a distinctly differently look to the pupil than his functional one, even though he's now in perfect health.