Please help, how to treat a sick fish in reef tank ?

[reef93]

My Coral Beauty Angel is having a cloudy eye for more than a week now. I don't think it will heal by itself without the treatment. I can't set up a quarantine tank and I can't catch him/her either. Does anyone know what kind of medication is reef safe. so I can treat this poor little one before it goes blind ? I have running bio pellets, is it going to effect the bacteria if I am using that kind of medication ? Please tell me if any of you had been using or had experience with it.

[RuGlu6]

My Coral Beauty Angel is having a cloudy eye for more than a week now. I don't think it will heal by itself without the treatment. I can't set up a quarantine tank and I can't catch him/her either. Does anyone know what kind of medication is reef safe. so I can treat this poor little one before it goes blind ? I have running bio pellets, is it going to effect the bacteria if I am using that kind of medication ? Please tell me if any of you had been using or had experience with it.

90% of the time "treatment" will speed up his departure to a fish heaven.
Mainly caused by stress of moving to another environment.
Medication in the reef is even worse, more side effects then anything. Risking the entire reef because of one fish.

Try improved diet (with garlic, garlic is good natural antibiotic) + double the doze of your regular iodine supplement.
better to have one eyed fish then a dead one.
jmtcw

[Mandosh]

Like RuGlu6 said, its usually caused by stress or poor water conditions. Have you tested your water? Frequent water changes for the next while should do the trick. I have heard of people using epsom salts for cloudy eyes if the water changes don't seem to help. Search and you should be able to find more info on that though.

[reef93]

Isn't it very sad to know your fish is going to go blind in the future ? :cry: He is my favorite fish.

[Mandosh]

Wait, who said your fish was going to go blind?

[daniella3d]

When my trigger had popeye (huge bulging eye very cloudy) I treated it with Seachem Paraguard in a quarantine tank and it took very long to really resolve the popeye but the cloudiness was much better after 3 weeks. You cannot treat in a display tank though.

Another option would be to treat antibiotics in the food but this is not very easy in a reef tank to control the dosage and could very well end up killing the fish by overdosing.

Garlic? ..it's probably not going to do much for a cloudy eye..but hey..you can try it.

[reef93]

Wait, who said your fish was going to go blind?


Even nobody says my fish will go blind but I know for sure if my Angel doesn't get treatment right now, it will difinitely go blind. It looks "serious" cloudy, I can not recognise that it would be called an eye anymore. I have treated all my fish with food soaked in garlic for a month now, but it doesn't seem to help that cloudy eye at all.
I can't catch him/her for quarantine, unless I rip the whole tank out, and I don't want to do that. Maybe I just have to let it go blind, as RuGlu6 said " better to have one eyed fish then a dead one ". I hope someone here has had some success experience with reef safe medication when they treat their sick fish.

[intarsiabox]

Unfortunatly it's very hard to treat a single fish in a display tank. It's probably equivilent to spraying antibiotics in aerosol form around the house to get rid of an infection. Extremely unlikely you will ever receive enough medication to have any effect. Just keep providing a healthy tank and food and with any luck things will turn out for the poor guy.

[untamed]

I had a yellow tail damsel live for at least 10 years AFTER losing an eye. If he seems otherwise healthy and continues to eat well, I would leave things alone.

[reef93]

I had a yellow tail damsel live for at least 10 years AFTER losing an eye. If he seems otherwise healthy and continues to eat well, I would leave things alone.


Untamed, you have senior experience ( with your giant tank :biggrin: ) on Canreef, if you say so I guess I will not bother to find out how to treat my angel anymore. He is eating well and very active, hope he can live for another 10 years like your little damsel. Anyway, I still feel bad though :cry: ... poor little handsome guy ...

[Hawkaholic]

I'm with untamed as well...if your fish is eating good and otherwise seems healthy, I'd leave it be. Sorry to hear about your troubles reef93

[RuGlu6]

Garlic? ..it's probably not going to do much for a cloudy eye..but hey..you can try it.

What i meant to communicate is that fish will have better chance of survival with better feeding, garlic will help him to eat more and support the immune system. It will not cure the eye obviously, it might will help to stay alive.

As for the garlic being a natural antibiotic this is true, but you need a lot of it in one dose. When i don't feel well I swallow cloves of garlic chunks, this way there is no smell because i am not chewing it, but i get high dose every time i eat i swallow 2-3 cloves. I had not taken any antibiotics in 12 years, this is great way to fight any infectious disease. Much more natural then flue shots anyway which i never take.

[isaac1]

i find all dwarf angels being a challenge i had one the died of ick and another from starvation let it run it course most often the more you try to fix the problem the worse off you become somtimes nature has to run its course as long as ur other fish are fine i wouldnt worry about it

[reef93]

You were right about that, dwarf angels are a bit of a challenge, but they are so beautiful. My next tank will be a FOWLR tank with at least 10 angels in there with different sizes.

[BlueWorldAquatic]

Most of the time, cloudy eyes are a cause of a bacteria infection, injury, or water conditions.

Was it one eye or 2? If 1 eye it was caused by a injury, and the bacteria has "infected" it.

With my experiences in FW & SW, I find the best treatment is to give the fish the best diet. Use additives like garlic & selcon to improve its diet. Also water changes will help, as the better the water the better the chances.

I also use a product by Marc Weiss, called "Immunal Vital", it helps with stress and increases the fishes immunity.

Ken - BWA

[reef93]

He only got 1 cloudy eye. You are so right about water condition and injury causes the problem. I had ich in my tank about a couple months ago, but now all the fish have recovered, only this poor guy scratching himself too much at that time and somehow injured his eye and getting worse day by day. I will use Immunal Vital for him, if I can find it here. It might be too late now but better than nothing. At least I know I have tried my best to rescue his eye.
Thank you so much. Ken.

[BlueWorldAquatic]

Your best bet for it is J&L, I also know Big Al's carries it out here

[reef93]

Thanks Ken, I will call them today. Hope they have it in stock.