Weird Eye Problem, please help!

[studmaster]

Just out of the blue my 4-5 inch GSP developed a cloudy eye...just one, the other is fine. Now it looks like the eye is puffing up. The only thing I can think of is that I bought some live rock a couple months ago and it had a small one inch pistol shrimp in it. If my GSP attacked, the shrimp could have hit his eye. Once again the other eye is fine. I caught and removed the shrimp, but I don't know if that was it in the first place.

Stats:
1)
PH 8.4
Ammonia=0
Nitrite=0
Nitrate=40ppm (used to be a lot higher and he was fine)
Salinity=1.025
2)
50 Gal Saltwater tank for the last 8 months or so, before that my GSP (Zephyr) was slowly acclimated from brackish all the way to full marine. He's been doing fine and growing like a weed in full marine.

3)WC is about 20% every 2-3 weeks. Other tank mates are 2 full grown mollies and some of their offspring...maybe 8 or so small mollies (once again all water parameters are great). I feed Zephyr mussles mostly, with some freeze dried bloodworms and some krill.

4) No real change in the last week or so...other than yesterday after his eye started looking bad, I did a 40% water change and found and removed the pistol shrimp.

5) Aquarium has been set up for 2 years, and I cycled it with the mollies at the start.

Here are some pictures, sorry my good camera wasn't available and these pictures are a bit dark. It's just the back of the tank that's dirty as it's very hard to reach with my algea magnet.

http://i480.photobucket.com/albums/rr16 ... G_4880.jpg
http://i480.photobucket.com/albums/rr16 ... G_4881.jpg
http://i480.photobucket.com/albums/rr16 ... G_4882.jpg
http://i480.photobucket.com/albums/rr16 ... G_4884.jpg

Thanks in advance for any help!

[Myaj]

Whether or not he has done "fine" at those levels of nitrates, you need to get them down. Exposure to high nitrates does long term damage, including lowering the immune system and making minor injuries tougher to heal because they are prone to infection and fungus, etc.

That's your first mode of action. Melafix will probably help as well.

He may have just bumped it on something, or the shrimp could have got him, but it could also be a development from exposure to higher than recommended nitrates.. they really do best if you keep them under 20.

[studmaster]

Whether or not he has done "fine" at those levels of nitrates, you need to get them down. Exposure to high nitrates does long term damage, including lowering the immune system and making minor injuries tougher to heal because they are prone to infection and fungus, etc.

That's your first mode of action. Melafix will probably help as well.

He may have just bumped it on something, or the shrimp could have got him, but it could also be a development from exposure to higher than recommended nitrates.. they really do best if you keep them under 20.

I don't think it's nitrate related, what are the chances that it would spring up after all this time in higher nitrate water, then after a month or so of lower nitrate water it occurs. The problem is that everwhere you go you read a different acceptable level for nitrates. I've seen/read/heard levels of all the way up to 120 without any problems. I don't agree with that, but I've seen it. There is no real agreement in the aquarium community about what level of nitrates are acceptable.
Having said that I want a level of 0, so I've been trying to use macroalgea to remove it from the water with a little luck, and I have a protein skimmer in the mail as I type this.

I was getting off topic there a bit, so to address Melafix, is it fine to use in a saltware aquarium? I have some from when it was a brackish tank, but haven't heard anything about using it in full marine.

[LilGreenPuffer]

All the forums I'm on say that the max amount of nitrates acceptable is 20, except for the most sensitive fish, in which case lower is better.

Nitrates may not be the direct cause, but they are probably aggravating the problem. The issue may originally be, as Myaj said, just a bump, but the nitrates are making it worse, and it will heal slowly or not at all with such high nitrates.

Without a skimmer, you should be doing 50% water changes each week. Considering that you have a fairly large tank, you could go back to maybe 30% per week, but not every two or three weeks, as you have been doing. Once you get that skimmer, you can cut back.

Melafix is fine for marine. There is a marine variety, but regular will work until you get your protein skimmer. The skimmer will make it bubble over.

[studmaster]

All the forums I'm on say that the max amount of nitrates acceptable is 20, except for the most sensitive fish, in which case lower is better.

Nitrates may not be the direct cause, but they are probably aggravating the problem. The issue may originally be, as Myaj said, just a bump, but the nitrates are making it worse, and it will heal slowly or not at all with such high nitrates.

Without a skimmer, you should be doing 50% water changes each week. Considering that you have a fairly large tank, you could go back to maybe 30% per week, but not every two or three weeks, as you have been doing. Once you get that skimmer, you can cut back.

Melafix is fine for marine. There is a marine variety, but regular will work until you get your protein skimmer. The skimmer will make it bubble over.

In general some might say having nitrates above 40ppm would aggravate a problem, but you would have to understand Zephyr. He has been living in way higher nitrate levels and has been a very rough fish in general without any problems whatsoever to speak of. He plays around the tank like a 4 year old boy plays....pretty much indestructible. I think the likelihood of this even being made worse from the nitrates, (which are at their lowest level in months), to be very low. After the 40% WC last night, the nitrates should be about 20% now any ways.

I would like to exhaust other possible ideas as being the cause if anyone out there can come up with some other possibilities. Has anyone ever experienced one eye becoming white while the other one is perfectly normal?

Thanks in advance, all ideas are welcome, looking for different points of view to brainstorm any possible causes. I would hate to lose Zephyr over something I could have fixed.

[LilGreenPuffer]

Well, you don't have to take this advice, but I'm going to say this one last thing: perfect water quality is a HUGE factor in helping a fish to recover and heal. There. I've said it. Take it or leave it.

[studmaster]

Well, you don't have to take this advice, but I'm going to say this one last thing: perfect water quality is a HUGE factor in helping a fish to recover and heal. There. I've said it. Take it or leave it.

understandable, and I'm getting it there. Thank you. I will test the water tonight and it should be already close to 20ppm nitrates. I will do another large WC tonight. Also looking for any other suggestions on cause and solution.

[bigfatfish]

Hi studmaster. Sorry to hear of the problem with your GSP. What age is he, as this could be an important factor in diagnosis. Fish develop age related diseases too! Cataract - that wouldn't explain the swelling though. Damage to the surface (cornea) of the eye - this may have caused an ulcer, which would show as a cloudy, white area. Is it the whole eye that is affected or just a patch on it? Issues with eye pressure, such as glaucoma would cause the eye to swell. I'm not sure that you will be able to get a definitive diagnosis - its not like you can pop him along to an opthalmologist! As has already been said, Melafix will do no harm & certainly there probably isn't a great deal more that you could do at this point, unless you were able to find a vet that could help?
ps not sure I need to mention anything about water quality!! I think you know how important it is though!

[Pufferpunk]

Eye problems in fish are caused by irritations from it getting poked/scratched or by poor water quality. See the sticky about adding vitamin C to your tank to lower nitrate & also to heal fish's problems.

[studmaster]

Eye problems in fish are caused by irritations from it getting poked/scratched or by poor water quality. See the sticky about adding vitamin C to your tank to lower nitrate & also to heal fish's problems.

Thanks for the reply pufferpunk, any thoughts on Melafix or antibiotics? I'm very hesitant on using antibiotics. I never knew that about vitamin c, I'll have to take a look.

Update on Water Parameters,

All the same readings at 0 and the nitrates are now at 15ppm.

[studmaster]

Hi studmaster. Sorry to hear of the problem with your GSP. What age is he, as this could be an important factor in diagnosis. Fish develop age related diseases too! Cataract - that wouldn't explain the swelling though. Damage to the surface (cornea) of the eye - this may have caused an ulcer, which would show as a cloudy, white area. Is it the whole eye that is affected or just a patch on it? Issues with eye pressure, such as glaucoma would cause the eye to swell. I'm not sure that you will be able to get a definitive diagnosis - its not like you can pop him along to an opthalmologist! As has already been said, Melafix will do no harm & certainly there probably isn't a great deal more that you could do at this point, unless you were able to find a vet that could help?
ps not sure I need to mention anything about water quality!! I think you know how important it is though!

Thanks for the reply bigfatfish, Zephyr is probably around 2 now. The swelling has increase more so than it was this morning even. At first it was just a cloudy blotch on his eye, now it's the whole eye. Water quality is near perfect with the nitrates now at 15ppm.

[bigfatfish]

Just a youngster then. I guess its more likely to be a bacterial infection (would probably needs antibiotics), possibly parasites (they can live under the skin & burrow), or I once had a goldfish with pop-eye (I think this is a bacterial infection too)- it was a long long time ago though, so can't remember what we treated it with, or if we even bothered!
I would suggest keeping the light to a minimum, or even switched off? Sorry I can't be of help really, but keep us posted. Picture would be good if at all possible.

[Dadof4]

Here's the Sticky on vitamin C. viewtopic.php?f=9&t=13501. Is there any visible abrasions or scratches? How does the tissue surrounding the eye look (like the conjunctiva)? Any redness/swelling? Also, is they eye starting to bulge at all? Most eye issues are caused by a primary injury, like a small scratch, and are exacerbated by water quality and/or infection. When most tissues become inflamed they turn hot red and swollen. With corneal tissue it becomes white because of the minimal blood flow to the tissue itself. Melafix is probably the best along with top notch water quality.

I'd like to comment on the nitrate issue. There are some that say nitrates are ok if they are high, but they are talking about fish with scales and gill plates. Puffers, or any scaleless fish for that matter, are very susceptible to any elevated waste products/byproducts. Nitrate poisoning in scaleless fish isn't just an acute issue, but also one that can have effects over time, kind of like people and cigarette smoke. The effects aren't seen right away but down the road they really can and do cause irreparable damage and will impede healing (believe it or not nicotine impedes healing, just a side note). Glad you got them down so quickly!

[Pufferpunk]

GSPs are known for ocassionally getting cloudy eyes. Just keep the water nice & clean & add the Melafix. NEVER add any other antibiotics to a cycled tank, only in QT.

[studmaster]

Here's the Sticky on vitamin C. viewtopic.php?f=9&t=13501. Is there any visible abrasions or scratches? How does the tissue surrounding the eye look (like the conjunctiva)? Any redness/swelling? Also, is they eye starting to bulge at all? Most eye issues are caused by a primary injury, like a small scratch, and are exacerbated by water quality and/or infection. When most tissues become inflamed they turn hot red and swollen. With corneal tissue it becomes white because of the minimal blood flow to the tissue itself. Melafix is probably the best along with top notch water quality.

I'd like to comment on the nitrate issue. There are some that say nitrates are ok if they are high, but they are talking about fish with scales and gill plates. Puffers, or any scaleless fish for that matter, are very susceptible to any elevated waste products/byproducts. Nitrate poisoning in scaleless fish isn't just an acute issue, but also one that can have effects over time, kind of like people and cigarette smoke. The effects aren't seen right away but down the road they really can and do cause irreparable damage and will impede healing (believe it or not nicotine impedes healing, just a side note). Glad you got them down so quickly!

Thanks for the explanation on the nitrate issue, make a bit more sense. I've had a variety of fish and just thought, in gerneral, they were all the same in regards to nitrate sensitivity. The protein skimmer is on the way and I have a macroalgea container sucking some of it up too.

As far as using Melafix, should I be using the regular dose for a marine tank? Some said that I shouldn't use as much.