swords3711

I have a sword and i think he is in the early stages of pop eye or eye cloud
i lowered the amount of oxygen in the tank
will this reduce the swelling or whiteness?
I do have some medication in the tank currently

Dino

How are you lowering the oxygen?

And why?

swords3711

i reduced the amout of kickout from the filter and i shut off the bubbler i had in the tank
i read that sometimes popeye can be caused from irritation by too much oxygen

Dino

Thats news to me.
I have always had the notion it was a water quality issue.

swords3711

ya i read that pop eye can be caused by an irritant
this includes foreign particles and too high of oxygen levels

Dino

But even turning down your equipment is not going to decrease your oxygen level.
There will still be oxygen entering your water just because there is less oxygen in the water than there is in the air.
It will continue to do so until the water has as much oxygen as it can hold.

NOT THAT I ADVISE THIS, but if you wated to decrease oxygen, I would think turning up your heater would be a better way of doing so, as warmer water holds less oxygen.

I still do not buy into the too much oxygen thing.

swords3711

ok well maybe my source (not sure where) may have been incorrect ofr proven wong
the place where i get most of my info is a book that is copyright 1966
it is reliable for fish species but i have calculated that most info in the book about disease is false

ill try raising the temp
what should the temp be set to and should i reset the air flow to wat i had it at?
besides that, is there any other advise?

Dino

Do a 25% change, return all the equipment to regular settings, do another 25% chage in 2 days and another 2 days after that. Do not increase the temperature.

swords3711

well i just did a 10% water change today and added a little medication
im goin out of town til sunday so i cant make the frequent water changes like i normally would.
thats why im tryin to get as much info as i can to correct the problem or perhaps slow it down
the meds wont hurt the other fish, will it?

COBettaCouple

From what i've learned, pop-eye is like dropsy - as far as it being a symptom of something else rather than a disease in itself. It can be caused by infrequent water changes, Ichthyosporidium (a parasitic fungus), Ichthyophonus, worm cataract disease, bacterial infection or parasite infestation.

Are there any other symptoms in him?


What meds have you treated the tank with? Depending on what you treated the tank with, you may want to go ahead and do at least a 25% pwc. Maracyn-2 or Maracyn Plus would be good for pop-eye. The problem is getting the doses in.

I'd agree with Dino's advice and i'm not sure if you can treat him now, unless there was someway to get the other doses to him. He may have to go with a 50% pwc now and a dose of any liquid vitamins that you have.

swords3711

well im using what is called MelaFix and it treats both popeye and eye cloud
so what ever it is it should help
my grandpa is coming over to feed them while im gone so ill have him put in the correct dosage, then when i get back i'll make the water change
i would quarentine him but i cant moniter his condition so ill have to leave him for now
he is a new fish that i just got from petsmart so water conditions cant be a factor
he has a white ring that goes around the outside of his right eye
it was cloudy monday but it seems to have cleared up slightly except for the ring
i know that ti proably wont kill him but id hate to have him lose his eye if i can help it
i already had a female lose her eye from pop eye but she is still quite healthy
i dont know hat my luck is with swords
that had been the fourth sword since may that has survived in some strange way
i just dont want anythiong to happen to my little guy or the fish in the tank
will the meds affect the other fish?

Dino

I have to disagree with that as well.

COBettaCouple

ok, melafix is an herbal med and while it's lethal to betta & gourami, it's ok for livebearers. it's not a problem to start/stop dosing with it. It can help him and hopefully will make it not necessary to use maracyn-2 or maracyn plus. You'd have to decide whether to wait until you get back and just have your grandpa add melafix daily or have your grandpa give him the maracyn-2 or maracyn plus while you're gone and start treating him with that now, based on looking at how serious you think it currently is.

he may have gotten the popeye from conditions in the water at the store, which are often poor at best.

as long as you don't have betta or gourami in that tank, the other fish should be ok with the melafix. the maracyn meds are a stress to the fish and best given in a hospital tank, but safe to use in a community tank with most fish, if you really need to. what fish are in that tank with him now?

swords3711

really i must have misenterpreted what COBetta had said
well when i go there i moniter the fish that i have caught an eye for
this way i know whether they are sickly or if others in the tank are ill
after knowing that it is safe i get the fish
this sword was perfectly healthy
i took pics of it to post here and ate dinner after about an hour of last seeing him i noticed the cloudiness in his eye

COBettaCouple

unfortunately, they can look and act healthy but be sick. quite often these things affect them internally for a while before showing up in symptoms that you can see - which is why the 3-week quarantine period is recommended for new fish.

swords3711

i dont quite see it as a seriousness but i just dont want it to exceed to that level while i am gone
i dont have bettas or gouramis just livebearers, tets, and a cory-cleaner combo
also this is a very young sword, telling through his body size and tail spike
i would just hate to have him suffer at alli
take my swords exceptionally cautious, beings that i have not had great luck raising sword fry - 1 fry to reach adulthood
that is what i am pushing toward with my swords is to get some successful breeding to take place

i am increasing greatly since though
i currently have mollie and variatus fry that i moniter very closely
the marble fry are just starting to get their spots

swords3711

i do try that at times with fish that i know are sick with spreading diseases such as fungus although i havent had it happen for a long time

COBettaCouple

the antibiotics are harder on fry or adolescent fish, so it may be worth trying the melafix and monitoring how it does before resorting to stronger meds.

swords3711

well im definately sticken to the melafix
hes not exactly a juvenile he is just a smaller male
should i do anything with the lighting or the temp?

Chief_waterchanger

I must agree with Dino, water conditions can be suspect ANYWHERE you get fish. I honestly would like to know why you would think they could not be a factor from PetSmart?

I also have trouble with the 'popeye being caused by too much oxygen' theory. There is something we learned about in elementary science class, the saturation point, that basically says that object X can only hold so much of substance Y before it will begin bleeding off substance Y at a fast enough rate that it stays constant.

So Water can only hold so much oxygen before it begins releasing oxygen from the surface, back into the air quickly enough to keep the oxygen levels in the water at a constant point, aka. the saturation point.

Temperature is one of the larger factors in the water's oxygen saturation. But if you had an oxygen tank on full blast into a fishtank you would hit the saturation point of oxygen and go no higher, it would bleed off from the water surface.

I know you said your book was probably outdated. I only posted that to give a reason as to why it would probably not be an oxygen thing, so other people reading the post would know what was going on.

swords3711

well thanks to both of you
thankfully when i got up this morning i looked at him and it appears to have cleared up
the only white ring is on the top of his eye and that, after looking at the other eye, is just the place where the eye extends over the side of the body
thanks for both of your help though i really apprercaite it ... especially on short notice
dino as for the water condition, i just misinterrpreted what COBetta had said
he talked about the water conditions being wrong and i thought he meant just in my tank
i know for sure about bad water in pet store tanks
a lot of times i dont even empty the water into the tank
well thanks to you again, now i can enjoy my vacation in peace

Dino

Glad to hear things are turning out ok.

swords3711

hopefully he'll stay like that
im keepin my fingers crossed

COBettaCouple

glad to hear it! have a good trip

swords3711

well never mind I lost both of my new swords while I was gone out of town.

COBettaCouple

we're sorry that you lost them.

swords3711

I know I'm pretty madespecially losing the female because she had really long fins.

Allie

Sorry about your fish.

That's the trouble with certain species of fish...they aren't as hardy as we think they are. Especially if they are from a LFS...hoping when we open our store that fish folk don't think we won't be the normal fish store.
I just wish they'd think quality not quantity. The money is in the accessories & food, so why not make sure that your fish are healthy.

swords3711

It's too bad you live in Canada. My Grandpa and I would've been able to give you a ton of guppies and mollies for your store. We have a ton, but they aren't full size yet.

♥ashley♥

well if it ever happens again to any other fish always remember:

♥ turn down the lights on the tank or just turn them off
♥ do 20% water changes DAILY!!! ( do not skip them )
♥ when using the medicin to treat it take out the water filter (but leave it running for air) and put it back in after 24 hours of administrating the meds.
♥ never over dose your fish tank
♥ never use medicin for more then I think it was 10 days or something like that
♥ don't over feed them

IMPORTANT!!!!

♥ check for ick in the tank. most of the time when people call me over to check out their fish with pop eye, they almost always have ick in the tank. ick is very itchy to the fish and they rub up against everything adn scratch up their eyes and it gets infected

♥ also in most cases pop eye gets better before it gets worse. I see this alot. people think "oh, well my fish are getting better and I don't think I need to treat them anymore" but really you do. it almost always looks like it's getting better and then POOF! before you know it, they get so infected and sick that they just go belly up.

I hope this helps you. if any of this in my list has been said in the previous posts I'm sorry for repeating it.