Plec With Hugely Swollen Eye!

[B13]

Hi there!!


I'm a newbie fish keeper and when I looked at my little Sailfin Plec this morning, his eye looks like it's popped out the socket!!

HELP!!!!!

I dunno what I can do to help it!! The pictures don't look anywhere near as bad as it looks in real life. It's eye really is bulging out the socket!!

 

[WILDER]

Size of tank in gallons or litres.
How many fish and which type.
Water stats in ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, and ph.
Popeye you will need to issolate and use a bacerial med like anti internal bacteria med by interpet.
http/www.flippersandfins.net/pop-eye.htm

 

[B13]

Hi Wilder and thank you!!

My tank stats are:

Size:

83 litres


Fish:

6 Zebra Danios
1 Sailfin Plec
3 Coolie Laoches
1 Siamese Flying Fox


Water Stats:

pH - 7.5
Ammonia - 0.1
NO2 - 0.2
NO3 - 30

(Please note that I was given some seriously bad advice when I set my tank up and bought my fish, so I'm now having to do an emergency 'fish-in' cycle with 50% water changes every day that I can do so and using a test kit that isn't known to be the most accurate... The new test kit will be with me tomorrow...)

I had a look at the little fella today and his eye is back in it's socket and the skin/membranes around the eye aren't red anymore. I'm gonna keep a very sharp eye ('scuse the pun!) on it to see if it flares up again. Can this happen? One day the eye is popping out the socket and the next it's back to near normal? I'm gonna take a guess that if something's wrong, it can flare up again...

Unfortunately I don't have second tank to isolate the fish in and the guy in the pet shop actually wouldn't let me buy the Interpet anti internal bacterial stuff!! He advised me to leave well alone and see what happens!



I know my water is still not great, but it's improving, so are plecs particularly sensitive to 'bad' water? (And are coolie loaches sensitive to meds? Someone told me that they are...)


I'll now go read your link...

 

[WILDER]

Have quite a few bottom dwellers there and I agree the tanks to small for some of them.
Plus plecs are massive waste producers so need to be doing a good gravel vac once a week.
Will the lfs swap some of the fish.

 

[B13]

Agreed!

The plec is gonna outgrow the tank, that's a given. But for now, I'm gonna concentrate on getting the water right and then swap him/her for a couple of danios.

Thankfully, the eye has returned to normal! Phew!!

And I'm cleaning the gravel each time I do a water change, so I'm getting a lot of the muck out. The plec seems to poo constantly!! So yeah, having this lil' chap means a lot of siphoning!



Either that or I'm gonna have to try potty train the little bugger...

 

[WILDER]

Glad the fish eye has returned back to normal.
With the tank being to small I would maybe do a gravel vac twice a week till you can rehome him to a biigger tank.
Good Luck.