Cardinal Cloudy Eye

[ariellemermaid]

I have a cardinal with one cloudy eye. Hard to take a picture of, but it’s cloudy and when looking at him head-on the cloudy eye is bigger than the other as well. He’s been in QT for over 3 months because of flukes. I just noticed it a few hours after finally transferring it to my DT; my mistake for not looking closer.
Question is: what should I do next?

Before you answer that, background. This batch of QT fish was infected with flukes. I didn’t know it at first, so I did 2-3 weeks of neoplex/metroplex/furan-2 to treat for frayed fins. After a few fish died and were dipped, flukes was the diagnosis. So I did 2 weeks of prazi followed by several weeks of hypo. Acclimated back to 35ppt. Then, another round of prazi because I replaced one of the dead fish. Finally, I did 30 days of copper. So he’s had several varieties of antibiotics including prazi, hypo, and copper.

Is there any chance this could be something self-limited that will get better on it’s own? Definitely don’t want to stress him twice in one day moving back to QT, but maybe tomorrow if I can even catch him. None of the fish were showing signs of a flukes resurgence or anything else for that matter. I’m so frustrated right now.

This photo was the best I could do:

 

[Jay Hemdal]

The flukes you found, were they the large Neobenedenia? The ones that look like fish scales when they drop off? If so, you need to treat them for 35 days at half salinity, or their eggs will just hatch out and reinfect the fish. That said, this eye looks more like an injury. Many times, those eye issues are self-limiting. I often will suggest dosing with Erythromycin, that seems to work, but I have no way of knowing if the issues would have gone away on their own.

A FW dip on the cardinalfish would help diagnostically.....

Jay

 

[ariellemermaid]

The flukes you found, were they the large Neobenedenia? The ones that look like fish scales when they drop off? If so, you need to treat them for 35 days at half salinity, or their eggs will just hatch out and reinfect the fish. That said, this eye looks more like an injury. Many times, those eye issues are self-limiting. I often will suggest dosing with Erythromycin, that seems to work, but I have no way of knowing if the issues would have gone away on their own.

A FW dip on the cardinalfish would help diagnostically.....

Jay

Thanks for the quick response! Just did a FW dip. He was playing dead and breathing very slowly so I took him out between 3-4 minutes. Definitely don’t see any opaque spots on the fish or anything left in the water like last time, they were pretty big before.

I’m hoping we managed to stamp them out with what we did. Looking at him in QT again it doesn’t look all that bad, I see how I missed it. Something about the blue light made the difference between his eye and his buddy’s very obvious. One of the cardinals did have a cloudy eye when we were battling the flukes but it appeared to completely resolve. Is it possible this is just sequela from past infection/damage and it’s the same eye that was infected before but only more visible under different lighting? I’ll try to get better pictures once they’re less stressed; I also need to clean algae from the QT first as I was planning to break it down tomorrow instead.

What should our QT approach be in the future regarding possible Neobenedenia flukes? Some of the fish we get in the mail are barely clinging to life so I’m hesitant to try FW dipping off the bat. Just observe for a while and take action if they’re showing signs of being sick? Treating with a round of prazi off the bat could just tamp it down and mask it for a while.... But, it probably would have saved 3 fish too before I knew what was going on (just frayed fins on one fish at the time). I don’t think I can do a 10 week QT on every new arrival factoring in hypo acclimation/re-acclimation.

 

[Jay Hemdal]

I think the eye issue is from an injury.

My standard quarantine is let the fish rest for 72 hours upon arrival then begin a 30 day copper treatment followed by 3 praziquantel treatments, 7 days apart. The fish are then held with no meds for 14 days. I then give the fish a FW dip to screen for Neobenedenia. If any are seen, the fish get 35 days at half salinity. If I see cloudy eyes or flashing during the copper, I will use prazi then.

Jay