Sick female Kribensis

[Dawn]

Oh oh, I was cleaning out the Kribensis tank this morning and saw that my female has a badly protruding eye - as she moves so fast I couldn't really get a good look at it but it looks to be brown and very much like the eyes of a googly-eyed goldfish except she's only got the one bad eye!

I did about a 40% water change and dosed the water with Malachite Green. I've looked through my fish books but can't come up with what it might be, hopefully one of the experts on here might know?

Or would it be kinder to put her to sleep now and not waste time trying to get her better?

The male seems to be okay. There is no discernible ammonia or nitrite in the tank although the PH had dropped to about 6.2, after the water change it is now at 6.8.

[suphew]

Quote from online below. Do a search on google for "fish disease pop eye" for a better idea of treatment.

Q: One of my fish's eyes is popped out to the side.

A: This is called "Pop-Eye", and is caused by a gram-positive bacteria that affects the kidney.

Treatment: Treat the fish with TMP Sulfa Powder for a ten day treatment.

Q: Both of my fish's eyes are popped out to the side.

A: These are the starting symptoms of Abdominal Dropsy. Very few fish survive this condition.

Treatment: Move the affected fish to an isolation tank and raise the temperature to 84-86 degrees fahrenheit. Treat the fish with 1 dose of Gentamycin Sulfate Powder and leave the medication in the water for 7 days, with no water changes during treatment time. When treatment is finished, add the carbon back to the filtration, and slowly lower the temperature back to normal over several days time.

[Dawn]

Thanks very much Suphew. I did a search as you suggested and read up on 'pop eye' and what it's causes are.

Seems like it could be one of a few different things and according to at least one source it is very hard to treat.

It looks like it might be kinder to put her to sleep and then treat the tank to make sure the male will be okay.

[Caryl]

It is also possibly caused by damage, not disease. If she is well and feeding, I would leave it. Even if she loses an eye she can still live very happily. If she can move fast enough to avoid being caught I would think she isn't too sick.

[suphew]

Make sure your water is tip top to, maybe take a sample to your LPS if you don't have the test kits, and keep doing large volume water changes every few day's. A lot of diseases are caused by stress and/or a water problem.

A note on the stress to, I know its hard but try and leave her alone as much as possible, every time you disturb her or worst yet chase her out of hiding to check will cause lots of stress.

[Dawn]

Thanks for the help Suphew. I do have a test kit and did a few tests but came up with nothing wrong with the water as far as I could see. Since Monday I've left her alone and just treated the tank. She wasn't coming out for food and I couldn't see her at all for two days.

This morning I wanted to make sure she wasn't dead and went looking for her, found her hiding and unfortunately she was far worse than I imagined - the bulge in her eye was now white and huge with her eye sort of hanging on the outside of it - I felt it was kinder to put her to sleep rather than have her die in agony, which is what I did.

The male seems to be fine but I will keep on treating the tank for another couple of days just to make sure. I'll do another water change tomorrow then in a week if he's still okay I'll put him into the community tank.