Carpenter wrasse bubble eye

[LKNLISA]

This is my first post so pls bear with me. We have a carpenter wrasse who apparently injured his eye. As a result, he got bubble eye. We don’t have a quarantine tank so we put him in a clear holding container to keep him away from the other fish. He was very lethargic at first but seems to have a little more energy now and color looks better. It’s been 10 days and the bubble has gone down but now we can’t tell if his eye is gone or still there. The socket moves and I can see what looks to be a little black spot in there but can’t tell if it’s an eye or not. I’m just wondering if anyone has experienced this and could share some insight. We definitely want to keep him and I want to get him back in the tank with the others as soon as possible because as y’all know, wrasse’s are very energetic fish; just not sure when to put him back and if it’s too soon ? Pls pls if anyone can help they would be great. Thx

Video from this afternoon

 

[LKNLISA]

This is my first post so pls bear with me. We have a carpenter wrasse who apparently injured his eye. As a result, he got bubble eye. We don’t have a quarantine tank so we put him in a clear holding container to keep him away from the other fish. He was very lethargic at first but seems to have a little more energy now and color looks better. It’s been 10 days and the bubble has gone down but now we can’t tell if his eye is gone or still there. The socket moves and I can see what looks to be a little black spot in there but can’t tell if it’s an eye or not. I’m just wondering if anyone has experienced this and could share some insight. We definitely want to keep him and I want to get him back in the tank with the others as soon as possible because as y’all know, wrasse’s are very energetic fish; just not sure when to put him back and if it’s too soon ? Pls pls if anyone can help they would be great. Thx

Video from this afternoon

 

[vetteguy53081]

This is my first post so pls bear with me. We have a carpenter wrasse who apparently injured his eye. As a result, he got bubble eye. We don’t have a quarantine tank so we put him in a clear holding container to keep him away from the other fish. He was very lethargic at first but seems to have a little more energy now and color looks better. It’s been 10 days and the bubble has gone down but now we can’t tell if his eye is gone or still there. The socket moves and I can see what looks to be a little black spot in there but can’t tell if it’s an eye or not. I’m just wondering if anyone has experienced this and could share some insight. We definitely want to keep him and I want to get him back in the tank with the others as soon as possible because as y’all know, wrasse’s are very energetic fish; just not sure when to put him back and if it’s too soon ? Pls pls if anyone can help they would be great. Thx

Video from this afternoon

This is due to mechanical injury and often cured in a separate tank using Maracyn as pictured for at least 5 days

 

[Jay Hemdal]

Is the fish eating well? I worry about wrasses being housed in acclimation tanks, it stresses them out and they may not eat well enough.

 

[LKNLISA]

we’ve been feeding him; haven’t seen him eat anything but he could be nibbling when I’m not watching. My biggest concern now is putting him back in with our other fish too soon. We think he has in fact lost his eye so what some of the fish “experts” are telling us is we need to give him time to let his eye heal over first because the other fish might to pray on the “imjured” eye. Want to get him back in the tank where he can swim rather than sitting in his box. His color still looks good and his breathing is good.

 

[Jay Hemdal]

we’ve been feeding him; haven’t seen him eat anything but he could be nibbling when I’m not watching. My biggest concern now is putting him back in with our other fish too soon. We think he has in fact lost his eye so what some of the fish “experts” are telling us is we need to give him time to let his eye heal over first because the other fish might to pray on the “imjured” eye. Want to get him back in the tank where he can swim rather than sitting in his box. His color still looks good and his breathing is good.

If you stand back a bit when you feed, and you don’t see it eat, it probably isn’t eating. Long term healing relies on the fish getting enough calories.

If the fish has lost its sight in that eye, other fish may attack it from its “blind side”, but that is going to always be a risk though. I’d release it in the main tank in the hope of getting it feeding. It’s been up to 10 days without food so far, and that cannot go on much longer…..

 

[LKNLISA]

If you stand back a bit when you feed, and you don’t see it eat, it probably isn’t eating. Long term healing relies on the fish getting enough calories.

If the fish has lost its sight in that eye, other fish may attack it from its “blind side”, but that is going to always be a risk though. I’d release it in the main tank in the hope of getting it feeding. It’s been up to 10 days without food so far, and that cannot go on much longer…..

If you stand back a bit when you feed, and you don’t see it eat, it probably isn’t eating. Long term healing relies on the fish getting enough calories.

If the fish has lost its sight in that eye, other fish may attack it from its “blind side”, but that is going to always be a risk though. I’d release it in the main tank in the hope of getting it feeding. It’s been up to 10 days without food so far, and that cannot go on much longer…..

thanks for your response. We decided it’s basically sink or swim time so we put “Finn” back in the tank tonight. He immediately started swimming all around; pretty good energy. Of course all our fish started checking him out as if he’s a “new” fish and the yellow tang started chasing him. Yellow is the one who started showing interest in his eye/trying to peck at it when it first happens and that’s why we separated him.

After about 10 min of Finn swimming around,we fed everyone and turned the lights way down; Finn ticked down behind one of the rocks and stayed parked there and that’s where he is right now for the night. I really hope he makes it. He’s come a long way and has totally hung on for 2 weeks but we needed to get him back in his “home” tank where he has room to swim and try getting back to normal. I’m super worried because I don’t want one of the other fish to bully him or even worse, mess with his bad eye. I hope we did the right thing. .

 

[Jay Hemdal]

Sorry - your replay was blank, did you have a follow up question?

 

[LKNLISA]

Hey yes I did but must not have saved. We decided last night to go ahead and put Finn back in the tank and see what he would do. He initially swam around a pretty good bit for the first few minutes and of course, all of the fish in the tank were checking him out as if he was a new fish even though it’s only been 12 days lol. The yellow tang is the one that poked at him when the eye thing first started and he went right for Finn yesterday. I’m assuming a lot of it was just curiosity as to who this new fish was but I think probably some of it was the eye too. Finn’s much faster and found himself in a little nook in the back of the tank. I’m hoping he comes out later today and at least tries to eat. We decided to put him back in the tank so he’d have the best chance to make it. He surely couldn’t stay in the small holding container so hope we made the right decision. I have my fingers crossed that all the others will leave him alone so we can try and get things back to normal. It’s been stressful to watch all of this and feel so helpless.

 

[LKNLISA]

Sorry - your replay was blank, did you have a follow up question?

Hey yes I did but must not have saved. We decided last night to go ahead and put Finn back in the tank and see what he would do. He initially swam around a pretty good bit for the first few minutes and of course, all of the fish in the tank were checking him out as if he was a new fish even though it’s only been 12 days lol. The yellow tang is the one that poked at him when the eye thing first started and he went right for Finn yesterday. I’m assuming a lot of it was just curiosity as to who this new fish was but I think probably some of it was the eye too. Finn’s much faster and found himself in a little nook in the back of the tank. I’m hoping he comes out later today and at least tries to eat. We decided to put him back in the tank so he’d have the best chance to make it. He surely couldn’t stay in the small holding container so hope we made the right decision. I have my fingers crossed that all the others will leave him alone so we can try and get things back to normal. It’s been stressful to watch all of this and feel so helpless.

 

[Jay Hemdal]

Hey yes I did but must not have saved. We decided last night to go ahead and put Finn back in the tank and see what he would do. He initially swam around a pretty good bit for the first few minutes and of course, all of the fish in the tank were checking him out as if he was a new fish even though it’s only been 12 days lol. The yellow tang is the one that poked at him when the eye thing first started and he went right for Finn yesterday. I’m assuming a lot of it was just curiosity as to who this new fish was but I think probably some of it was the eye too. Finn’s much faster and found himself in a little nook in the back of the tank. I’m hoping he comes out later today and at least tries to eat. We decided to put him back in the tank so he’d have the best chance to make it. He surely couldn’t stay in the small holding container so hope we made the right decision. I have my fingers crossed that all the others will leave him alone so we can try and get things back to normal. It’s been stressful to watch all of this and feel so helpless.

Ah, I didn’t realize that the eye injury was caused by a tang. That can happen again. Ultimately, you may have an incompatible mix here. Sometimes aggression settles down, but other times it doesn’t.

 

[LKNLISA]

Ah, I didn’t realize that the eye injury was caused by a tang. That can happen again. Ultimately, you may have an incompatible mix here. Sometimes aggression settles down, but other times it doesn’t.

No the injury wasn’t caused by our tang. They’ve been tank mates for over a year and all was fine. We don’t know what caused the eye injury for Finn as we didn’t see it happen. When we noticed his bubble eye, we watched him for a day or two and on one of those days, we say our tang start chasing him and kind of poked at the side of his body. Nothing real aggressive but enough that I didn’t want to take the chance of Finn getting hurt so we moved him into the separate container to heal. Now they’re all back in the tank but Finn has been hiding tucked away under the rock arches for the past 2 days. We’ve been feeding everyone like normal but I haven’t seeen him eat. He won’t come out. I felt like getting him back in the tank was the best decision but I don’t know when he’s gonna come out and eat. Thinking he’s maybe nervous about things since he’s adjusting to not having an eye. I don’t know and since he was out of the tank for 2 weeks the other fish are acting like he’s a new fish. I’m just stressed. Ugggh

 

[Jay Hemdal]

No the injury wasn’t caused by our tang. They’ve been tank mates for over a year and all was fine. We don’t know what caused the eye injury for Finn as we didn’t see it happen. When we noticed his bubble eye, we watched him for a day or two and on one of those days, we say our tang start chasing him and kind of poked at the side of his body. Nothing real aggressive but enough that I didn’t want to take the chance of Finn getting hurt so we moved him into the separate container to heal. Now they’re all back in the tank but Finn has been hiding tucked away under the rock arches for the past 2 days. We’ve been feeding everyone like normal but I haven’t seeen him eat. He won’t come out. I felt like getting him back in the tank was the best decision but I don’t know when he’s gonna come out and eat. Thinking he’s maybe nervous about things since he’s adjusting to not having an eye. I don’t know and since he was out of the tank for 2 weeks the other fish are acting like he’s a new fish. I’m just stressed. Ugggh

I’m not sure I understand - you wrote that the yellow tang was the one who poked him when it first started….
If there is aggression and chasing, that can cause a fish to swim away to avoid that, but run into something, causing the eye damage.

 

[LKNLISA]

I’m not sure I understand - you wrote that the yellow tang was the one who poked him when it first started….
If there is aggression and chasing, that can cause a fish to swim away to avoid that, but run into something, causing the eye damage.

We don’t think our tang caused bubble eye as it’s never shown aggression to any of our other fish. We think Finn must have just run into a rock or something. When we noticed the injured eye, a day or so later, we saw our tang start to show unusual Interest in Finn and saw him sort of poke at the side of Finn’s body; nothing aggressive but thought it could turn into something more so we removed Finn and put him in isolation.
He’s now back in the tank and immediately all of the fish started checking him out. Not sure if they just think he’s the “new” guy and are doing the normal showing who’s boss routine or if they sense the injury. That’s more of my concern.
But…good news to report from an hour ago, I did see Finn finally eat so that was very encouraging. Just gonna have to wait and see I guess.