I literally feel like the S word. I was doing a routine water change however summer months make for hotter water I put them in a little side tank while I cooled the main tank down, its finally around 75 degrees. So I was gonna put them in little baggies like when I first got them and put them in the water for a half hour or so. I struggled to get the black moor out of the net and into the bag and he fell onto the floor, from my bathroom counter's height. So Naturally I gasped and freaked the heck out. I tried picking him up as quickly as possible and put him back in the quarintine tank. I waited a few minutes and put him successfully in a bag and into the tank. In the mean time I was watching and watching him because I knew I just hurt him. I noticed the worst thing.. His eye is now damaged. I don't know how severe it is he can still see me out of it for sure because he sort of avoids my finger in the water. But around the edge of his eye is a tear. I could only tell because his skin is solid black and there was a small copper looking flesh exposed. It appears his outer skin torn from the fall. Now I feel like a horrible person I want to cry for my little fish. His eye is even a slight bit misshapen now! I'm so horrible for not being more careful, Black Moor's already have enough trouble seeing now I'm scared his left eye is going to be useless. The actual eye isn't torn and he appears to be able to see my finger. However its a pretty nasty looking tear, He even has a string of skin spanned across the tear (that's how I knew it was torn.) I'm going to put him back in the home tank shortly and add a ton of stress coat. I don't know what's going to happen..He must be internally bruised. It was a 3.5 to 4 foot fall and he's just a little guy not even a year old.
Don't overdose on the stress coat. Also, small critters can usually take falls much better than larger ones. So aside from the visible damage theres probably nothing internal. The eye will heal in time.
are you saying you think its just a small external injury? Just an outside cut? What about the vision, I'm worried for vision loss, even tho the damage doesn't look like its over the eye itself.
Reptiles regenerate, so odds are it will repair over time especially since goldfish can live for decades.
It all depends on if he received internal damage or not. I actually dropped a 2 month old baby a couple of weeks ago and he didn’t make it. I think an older one has a better chance. If it is just external, then keep the water super clean. You can add some Melafix to help in healing. For simple cuts/abrasions Melafix works fine. If no internal injuries, the fish should heal. Moving fish from the tank is never good for them and puts unneeded stress on them. Although 78F is warm, they can handle it. Mine is setting at about 75F right now. I wouldn’t reccomend doing it again. Good luck and keep us posted.
I only did it because the tap was 91 degrees! I had to chill the water. He's swimming around looking for food seems to be doing fine. Minus the visual deformity, poor guy.
Off-topic, but I took this sentence way out of context and was briefly very concerned. Hope the best for you and your fish, Jason.
My pearl Gourami did a 7 foot nose dive at Petco when I was buying him. He was dizzy and couldn't right himself for a bit. At first I told the girl I didn't want him but he fairly quickly righted himself so I made the call to keep him. Long story short the wound became infected and I had to treat the whole tank with Kanaplex. If you used Seachem stress guard they say it's okay to double up on the dose. Keep the water pristine and use the Melafix as recommened above. Hopefully that will prevent secondary infections.
It appears to be healing already. Hes got a white film over that part of his eye identical to when he scraped it on the substrate a couple months back. I think it's the same eye too he's taken a beating there.
So an update the eye looks normal no further problems but his eye is deflated. Will his eye ever reinflate again? Or is he deformed forever also if it does how long does it take to inflate. I also have no idea how to check if he's blind in that eye.
