eye trauma

[coralreefer]

As I went to feed my clownfish tonight I noticed that one of his/her eyes are bulging and the lens almost looks plastic like. I was reading on wetwebmedia that diseases such as popeye usually will affect both eyes. Does anyone have experience with eye infections? What problems did you have and what treatments did you try? Wetwebmedia said I could treat with epsom salts but at this point I would rather not tear the tank down to quarantine the clown if the infection could heal itself.

[Redwinger]

Melafix is what I have used in the past. I treated in the tank only side affect is the skimmer goes balistic for quite a while. Did not affect any of the corals in the tank when I treated. Or just load the food with garlic and vitamins to help him/her fight it off.

[storrisch]

garlic can def. help with internal parasites. You can just use a garlic press and squeeze fresh cloves onto their food.

[coralreefer]

I'll try the garlic out. I've been loading the food with vitamins and I will keep that up. The good thing is that the clown hasn't stopped eating. It may not be able to see out of that eye but it is still going after the food pretty well.

[Taklu]

I have used epsom for eye problems succesfully in freshwater, dunno how that works in saltwater.

[David Grigor]

A clown and a chaulk bass in the past has had this. It has always gone away or drastically improved after 7 days without doing anything. If it hasn't gotten better in a week then may want to try some type of treatment.

However, I will add, that you should always have a plan/method for getting your fish out not waiting until an emergency to figure out how to do it. I built a fish trap that works quite well from acrylic and can catch pretty much any fish in my tank that is still eating most times within minutes of trying.

[benihana]

My Clarkii had the exact same thing, it went away after about 2 weeks, and then came back, and then went away again after a couple of weeks. Since Popeye does effect both eyes, I wasn't sure what to do.

I talked to my LFS and they said to monitor it, and that since she was eating, it should be okay. I did not want to treat the entire tank, so I just monitored the situation multiple times per day, and kept an eye on her during feeding times.

She pulled through it, and now seems normal. No really visible after effects, besides the eye in question sticking out VERY slightly...Not sure what caused it, I was told she may have injured it somehow.

Best of luck, hopefully you have the same end result!