Inflamation Of Eye - What's This Disease?

[uaeast]

Hi all,

I have had my 120litre tank set up for about 4 months months now and everything seemed to be settle in until tonight I noticed one of my silver dollars has like an inflamed eye, its like 'saggy' just around the black part. When the fish swims you can notice the inflammation kind of get bigger and smaller, either it's actually altering size or just changing shape to appear size difference. The fish seems to be energetic and is still eating and digesting normally.

Other species in tank:
4x albino Congo tetra
4x columbian tetra
3x glass catfish
2x silver dollars
1x pictus catfish
1x sailfin plec

Any advice on what this could be, and best route to take now would be great.

Cheers, Josh.

 

[AstonN24vantage]

do you have a picture?

 

[uaeast]

Will try take a picture in the morning and do some water tests also.

 

[WILDER]

We do need to look at your water stats in ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, and ph.

is the eye bulging out.
Could it be an injury caused by a plant or ornament in the tank, something sharp, or fighting.
Any cloudiness to the eye.
Any fungus on the eye.
Is just one eye affected.
Is the eye swollen.

 

[uaeast]

Test results:

Ammonia = 0.2
nitrite = 0
Nitrate = 3-4
Ph = 7.3-7.5

Will do a water change tomorrow to try and get rid of that nitrate but it doesn't seem dangerously high to me?

The eye seems to be clear as normal, the middle part looks fine, just the surrounding part, just looks swollen like you say.
And yea it's just the right eye.

Joshua.

 

[Athena]

Joshua

It's the ammonia you need to get to zero, not the nitrate. It's perfectly normal to have some nitrates level showing, in fact it would be a bit strange not to have a nitrate reading. Ammonia and nitrites are the ones you don't want.

So, yes, another water change of say 25% should sort that ammonia spike out. But then you need to fathom out what caused it. Could you have been overfeeding recently? Or do you have any uneaten food that has rotted in there on the substrate?

Might be an idea to do a gravel vac same time as the water change.

Sounds like your silver dollar might have the start of popeye. Quite a common reaction to toxins in the tank causing stress, leading to bacterial disease. If the eye doesn't appear any better after a few more water changes you may have to treat with an anti-bac med (something that helps popeye e.g. Myxazin).

Regards - Athena

 

[uaeast]

Just done some research on pop eye and I think this is what it is! Especially as it does looks like extra fluid behind/surrounding the eye.

Will water change, vac the gravel and keep an eye on it and then treat for bacterial disease if it doesn't clear itself.

Thanks for the help,
Joshua.

 

[WILDER]

Ok.
If anymore problems get back to the board.
Good Luck.