Cardinal Tetra Eye Popping Out

[Livewire88]

Hi,

I have just noticed that one of my Cardinal Tetra's has 1 eye that is very swollen, it almost looks like it is popping out! He seems happy enough swimming round with the others, I fed the fish a dried tubifex cube today for the fish time but im sure that has not caused this.

Its only on one eye, what should I do?? I have done my weekly 50% water change today and stats are 0,0,20

 

[eaglesaquarium]

Looks like a case of "popeye".
Have a read here.

If you have a quarantine tank (QT), that should be step one.
Step two would be the water change, but it would be fine in the new tank.
Step three is where it gets tricky... do you knwo the cause? Have you had ich recently in this tank? Did the fish injure its eye? Do you see gas bubbles behind the eye?
Treat with an antibiotic for 5-7 days, keep a close watch and hope that it responds to the treatment. A little salt might help as well... 1 tbsp per 5 gallons. Skip this step if you have scaleless fish like cories and don't have a QT. If it is alone in a QT, then treating only that fish would be much safer for all the other fish. Watch all the other fish for symptoms. It might be related to water quality.

 

[Livewire88]

Thanks for the link, after reading up on various sites it seems that this is more than likley not popeye, the reason I say this is because the swelling is more above the eye, which in turn has caused the eye to come out.

So I think this has been caused as a result of an injury, either the fish has bumped into something or been picked on by an other fish. My Electric blue rams have just started to square up to each other so I will have to keep my eye on them.

On a side note I am thinking of getting a weak led light to give a tiny bit of light in the tank during the night, I will have to do a bit more reasearch on night lighting before I do though.

 

[colleen0309]

If it was me, the first thing I would do is a water quality check. If your ammonia and nitrite are 0 and nitrates are 20 - 40ppm, then that probably isn't the problem. I would still do a pwc. When my angelfish had popeye, caused by an injury, a few water changes seemed to help. It cleared up without medication.

 

[Caprichoso]

They can also get small white worms on their fins and eyes. When it gets on the eye, the eye forms a bubble around the worm. You can q't the fish and treat it with API general cure, it will kill the worm. I've had these worms on my cardinals fins and I scraped it off without having to med the tank but you can't when they are on the eyes.

 

[Blubble37]

I found that when my female molly bumped her eye it got very cloudy and swollen to the point that it looked like a severe cataracts... myxazin and a nice big water change helped... but ultimately it is just the natural healing time that defines how long it goes on for...

 

[Livewire88]

If it was me, the first thing I would do is a water quality check. If your ammonia and nitrite are 0 and nitrates are 20 - 40ppm, then that probably isn't the problem. I would still do a pwc. When my angelfish had popeye, caused by an injury, a few water changes seemed to help. It cleared up without medication.

I am quite sure the water is not the issue, I did a 50% water change the same day before I noticed his eye, I am going to do a second 50% water change tomorrow and a 50% water change again on Thurs.

Fingers crossed it should clear up, I dont have a hospital tank so I may have to think about investing in one in the near future, I have my 10G Betta bowl but I dont think my Betta will take kindly to one cardinal tetra taking over his home!!

 

[CezzaXV]

They can also get small white worms on their fins and eyes. When it gets on the eye, the eye forms a bubble around the worm. You can q't the fish and treat it with API general cure, it will kill the worm. I've had these worms on my cardinals fins and I scraped it off without having to med the tank but you can't when they are on the eyes.

Is there a name for this? My cardinal had a poppy eye that I thought was an injury, but in the last few days there's a definite white squiggle above his eye. Just wanna do some more reading on it.

I've got some King British Disease Clear - is this stuff any good for that?

 

[Caprichoso]

They can also get small white worms on their fins and eyes. When it gets on the eye, the eye forms a bubble around the worm. You can q't the fish and treat it with API general cure, it will kill the worm. I've had these worms on my cardinals fins and I scraped it off without having to med the tank but you can't when they are on the eyes.

Is there a name for this? My cardinal had a poppy eye that I thought was an injury, but in the last few days there's a definite white squiggle above his eye. Just wanna do some more reading on it.

I've got some King British Disease Clear - is this stuff any good for that?

I can't find any info on what the worm is but it seems to be some sort of nematode. I currently have one of the worms in a jar with isopropyl alcohol and I'm planning on taking it to my local university's zoology professor to find out.

I'm not familiar with that med but anything that contains metronadizole or praziquintel should do the trick.