Platy has one cloudy eye. Please help!

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Platyguy2023

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Hi Iā€™m new to tropical fish in general. I got 5 Platy fish from my local store and have them in a 10 gallon tank. There are also two ghost shrimps. Iā€™m posting today to ask about my fish as I am very worried that one may not be doing so well. It has one cloudy eye and red gills. The other platies seem to be doing fine. Iā€™ve tested for everything but ammonia (my test strips donā€™t test for that for some reason.) Iā€™m worried the ammonia levels are unhealthy but I would think my other fish would be showing signs of ammonia as well. Iā€™m worried it has Popeye and I donā€™t know what to do. Could someone please help me?
 

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It looks like a physical injury to the eye. Clean water and salt should stop it getting infected and allow the eye to heal by itself.

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Wipe the inside of the glass down with a clean fish sponge. This removes the biofilm on the glass and the biofilm will contain lots of harmful bacteria, fungus, protozoans and various other microscopic life forms.

Do a 75% water change and gravel clean the substrate every day for a week. The water changes and gravel cleaning will reduce the number of disease organisms in the water and provide a cleaner environment for the fish to recover in. It also removes a lot of the gunk and this means any medication can work on treating the fish instead of being wasted killing the pathogens in the gunk.
Make sure any new water is free of chlorine/ chloramine before it is added to the tank.

Clean the filter if it hasn't been done in the last 2 weeks. However, if the filter is less than 6 weeks old, do not clean it. Wash the filter materials/ media in a bucket of tank water and re-use the media. Tip the bucket of dirty water on the garden/ lawn. Cleaning the filter means less gunk and cleaner water with fewer pathogens so any medication (if needed) will work more effectively on the fish.

Increase surface turbulence/ aeration to maximise the dissolved oxygen in the water.

If there's no improvement after a couple of water changes, add some salt.

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SALT
You can add rock salt (often sold as aquarium salt), swimming pool salt, or any non iodised salt (sodium chloride) to the aquarium at the dose rate of 1 heaped tablespoon per 20 litres (5 gallons) of water. If there is no improvement after 48 hours you can double that dose rate so there is 2 heaped tablespoons of salt per 20 litres.

Keep the salt level like this for at least 2 weeks but no longer than 4 weeks otherwise kidney damage can occur. Kidney damage is more likely to occur in fish from soft water (tetras, Corydoras, angelfish, Bettas & gouramis, loaches) that are exposed to high levels of salt for an extended period of time, and is not an issue with livebearers, rainbowfish or other salt tolerant species.

The salt will not affect the beneficial filter bacteria, fish, plants, shrimp or snails.

After you use salt and the fish have recovered, you do a 10% water change each day for a week using only fresh water that has been dechlorinated. Then do a 20% water change each day for a week. Then you can do bigger water changes after that. This dilutes the salt out of the tank slowly so it doesn't harm the fish.

If you do water changes while using salt, you need to treat the new water with salt before adding it to the tank. This will keep the salt level stable in the tank and minimise stress on the fish.

When you first add salt, add the salt to a small bucket of tank water and dissolve the salt. Then slowly pour the salt water into the tank near the filter outlet. Add the salt over a couple of minutes.
 
Thank you very much for your help! I will try to get numbers for my water posted but I currently have colored test strips. Iā€™m glad it seems to just be an injury and not something more serious. Could this be caused by fighting between my Platy fish?
 
It's more likely to be from the fish swimming into something hard or sharp. It might have panicked during the night and scratched the eye. If it happens again or doesn't improve in a few days, post more pictures.
 
Will do! Iā€™ll do the tank cleanings and stuff as well. Thank you for your help!
 
I'm with Colin... Especially in pic#2, it seems an injury.
 
Here are some pics of my other fish. I had one mysteriously pass away. My blue Platy seems to have something going on with her fin(I think itā€™s a female). The black one tends to spend her time in the fish hide I bought and none of them seem super interested in the either food Iā€™ve tried. I will post pics of the food. Yellow platys eye looks like it on the mend? Iā€™m not sure.
 

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The fish looks a bit skinny and could have worms and or gill flukes. Section 3 of the following link has info on treating fish with worms.

If the fish aren't eating, make sure the water quality is good and try a different food. Live brineshrimp (available from most pet shops) will normally be taken by all fish. Frozen foods like brineshrimp, bloodworm, daphnia, mysis shrimp and marine mix can also be offered.
 

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