Raised white dot on eye?

trophyhimbo · May 14, 2023

I noticed a white raised spot on the black cardinalfish's right eye on Friday and fish was behaving normally. There are no other white spots directly on the fish (please trust this, the picture has some glass debris, copepods, and algae growth) and there are no other fish in the tank (firefish took an unfortunate jumping adventure last week). Inverts include a variety of snails, one hermit crab, a fire shrimp, and a tiger conch. It kinda looks like a big white pimple and that eye seems to have gone cloudy. Just got back from a camping trip and she is not behaving like she used to and is "hiccuping" and listless at the bottom of the tank. She is not interested in any frozen mysis shrimp or reacting to anything near her. She floated around back to the fire shrimp and then floated back out front and is now in one bottom spot. What could this be?

Nitrates: 0.8ppm
Phosphates: 0.04ppm
Salinity: 1.025

Tank completed initial ammonia cycle about 5-6 weeks ago and is currently going through diatoms and algae. Autofeeder has been feeding pellets every 12 hours and I supplement with frozen mysis shrimp. I no longer want to put anymore fish in this tank

At least the invertebrates and algae are thriving...

vetteguy53081 · May 14, 2023

trophyhimbo said:
I noticed a white raised spot on the black cardinalfish's right eye on Friday and fish was behaving normally. There are no other white spots directly on the fish (please trust this, the picture has some glass debris, copepods, and algae growth) and there are no other fish in the tank (firefish took an unfortunate jumping adventure last week). Inverts include a variety of snails, one hermit crab, a fire shrimp, and a tiger conch. It kinda looks like a big white pimple and that eye seems to have gone cloudy. Just got back from a camping trip and she is not behaving like she used to and is "hiccuping" and listless at the bottom of the tank. She is not interested in any frozen mysis shrimp or reacting to anything near her. She floated around back to the fire shrimp and then floated back out front and is now in one bottom spot. What could this be?

Nitrates: 0.8ppm
Phosphates: 0.04ppm
Salinity: 1.025

Tank completed initial ammonia cycle about 5-6 weeks ago and is currently going through diatoms and algae. Autofeeder has been feeding pellets every 12 hours and I supplement with frozen mysis shrimp. I no longer want to put anymore fish in this tank At least the invertebrates and algae are thriving...

View attachment 3149666

These fish susceptible to popeye for some reason and this may be a result of eye injury where protective layer id affected.
Treat eye in quarantine using Maracyn AKA maracyn 1 which is ethromyacin for 5 days

trophyhimbo · May 14, 2023

vetteguy53081 said:
These fish susceptible to popeye for some reason and this may be a result of eye injury where protective layer id affected.
Treat eye in quarantine using Maracyn AKA maracyn 1 which is ethromyacin for 5 days

Thank you so much! At least there's an explanation and it doesn't sound like the tank itself is inhospitable. Will try to source the treatment ASAP

Jay Hemdal · May 14, 2023

trophyhimbo said:
I noticed a white raised spot on the black cardinalfish's right eye on Friday and fish was behaving normally. There are no other white spots directly on the fish (please trust this, the picture has some glass debris, copepods, and algae growth) and there are no other fish in the tank (firefish took an unfortunate jumping adventure last week). Inverts include a variety of snails, one hermit crab, a fire shrimp, and a tiger conch. It kinda looks like a big white pimple and that eye seems to have gone cloudy. Just got back from a camping trip and she is not behaving like she used to and is "hiccuping" and listless at the bottom of the tank. She is not interested in any frozen mysis shrimp or reacting to anything near her. She floated around back to the fire shrimp and then floated back out front and is now in one bottom spot. What could this be?

Nitrates: 0.8ppm
Phosphates: 0.04ppm
Salinity: 1.025

Tank completed initial ammonia cycle about 5-6 weeks ago and is currently going through diatoms and algae. Autofeeder has been feeding pellets every 12 hours and I supplement with frozen mysis shrimp. I no longer want to put anymore fish in this tank At least the invertebrates and algae are thriving...

View attachment 3149666

While this does look like a superficial eye injury, the fish not eating doesn't line up with that. Is the other eye totally clear, or a little cloudy, I can't tell. Can you also post a short video of the fish?

This could be flukes.....

Jay

trophyhimbo · May 14, 2023

Jay Hemdal said:
While this does look like a superficial eye injury, the fish not eating doesn't line up with that. Is the other eye totally clear, or a little cloudy, I can't tell. Can you also post a short video of the fish?

This could be flukes.....

Jay

The other eye is totally clear from what I can tell. I attempted to take a video, but it won't reveal anything other than that picture will since the fish is now just not moving... but still breathing.

This fish and the only other fish I had put in the tank came pre-quarantined (Dr. Reef) and the inverts came from Reef Cleaners which does not keep fish with their inverts. I assumed I wouldn't have introduced something like flukes into the tank, but I can see if those symptoms line up with the behavior.

I was unfortunately away for the weekend, so was unable to observe any behavior until I got back.

MnFish1 · May 14, 2023

Hope it works out.

trophyhimbo · May 14, 2023

MnFish1 said:
Hope it works out.

Appreciate it! Isn't looking to good at the moment, but hopefully I can at least figure out what went wrong so it doesn't happen again...

trophyhimbo · May 14, 2023

Fish has passed...

I have a theory though. I was pretty diligent about trimming back some growth every morning during this ugly brown stage and perhaps what I thought was brown algae was actually dinos? Came back from a weekend away and the brown strings all had air bubbles at the ends and middle, which I must have been clearing away with a daily clean. No invertebrate deaths that I've noticed yet (have a variety of 12 snails in there, a hermit crab, a tiger conch, and a fire shrimp), but maybe the black cardinalfish was sensitive to something in the water or ate some dinos?

I can detect nitrates and phosphates and have no corals yet. I am going to do a black out and cover my tank with some paper for a few days and see what the tank looks like afterwards. Here is the tank now (sorry for lighting, haven't gotten the photography down...)

Perhaps the dino was photosynthetic and was able to outcompete other not-as-problematic algae and/or bacteria? Could dose some bacterial supplement and more copepods (although these guys are already all over my glass) in a few days if things clear up to keep it at bay if whatever is in my tank recedes... You guys think I'm going down the right path?

Jay Hemdal · May 14, 2023

trophyhimbo said:
The other eye is totally clear from what I can tell. I attempted to take a video, but it won't reveal anything other than that picture will since the fish is now just not moving... but still breathing.

This fish and the only other fish I had put in the tank came pre-quarantined (Dr. Reef) and the inverts came from Reef Cleaners which does not keep fish with their inverts. I assumed I wouldn't have introduced something like flukes into the tank, but I can see if those symptoms line up with the behavior.

I was unfortunately away for the weekend, so was unable to observe any behavior until I got back.

View attachment 3149875