Help Please! Red Zebra Eye Out.

[Naught]

My father owns a tank of various Cichlids, one I believe being the Red Zebra. They tend to fight from time to time and when it does become bad I take care of the injured in my own tank by themselves. I recently had two that were almost ready to rejoin the others.

Yesterday afternoon I did a complete water change for the fish and then placed them back into the aquarium. Today when I was watching them swim around I noticed something was wrong with the larger fishes eye. At first I thought it was some sort of fungus until I looked closer and it seems his actual eye is out of the socket.

Previously when attacked in the larger tank they went after the same eye and it became swollen and hazey, but eventually that swelling went down with isolation. However I have never dealt with anything like this. :(

He still swims around and eats normally, though tries to hide when anyone gets near the tank now.

I've grown extremely attached to this fish and really would not like to dispose of him. Will he heal naturally on his own? Is there some medicine I should add to the tank to help him? One of my friends suggested melafix?

Any advice you can offer would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

Pictures:
http://i40.tinypic.com/2cpz5vn.jpg
http://i40.tinypic.com/20584o.jpg

[pitdogg2]

it appears that eye is no longer an eye but a socket does not look good. I do not believe any amount of medicine will fix the eye only keep it from further infection

[Naught]

I'm just concerned that he'll die. Rather if the socket actually heals over and he is fine I'm alright with that. I just want to know if there is anything I can do to ensure I don't wake up to my fish gone.

I spoke with a person today at our local pet store and he said he's never encountered such a thing before, however to try melafix in small doses to see if that helps him heal at all.

[James123]

Please do yourself and the fish a favor. Don't allow stronger fish to attack other fish in your tank. Allowing this to continue is very cruel and the tank biotope is never in harmony. Just think how would you like it to be in a bedroom with someone three times your size giving you a beating everyday with no chance to win the fight and nowhere to escape. Remove either fish the bullied one or the bully. Put them in separate tanks or give one away. There is no other way. I just can't imagine why people allow this to go on. If the fish has lost an eye the eye socket can heal if the waters kept clean with no medication. I have a 6 year old White Calvus which lost an eye from rubbing it's eye on the inside of a marine shell while breeding from a bacterial infection two years ago. The fish still breeds and is healthy with one eye.

[bobrfish]

I own an Amphilopus with one eye. His eye lens disappeared and slowly the skin grew over the area where eye used to be. He was only 2" at time.
He is the one that harms the other fish in tank. If he had two eyes, he would probably be kiling the other fish. If he did not have this attitude he probably would not have survived.

I also have a female nkambae with one eye. She does well with just one eye.

Regarding your situation, remove fish and allow eye socket to heal over if it will. Then reintroduce fish to tank. It would not surprise me if he survives in the tank with just one eye.

[Naught]

Please do yourself and the fish a favor. Don't allow stronger fish to attack other fish in your tank. Allowing this to continue is very cruel and the tank biotope is never in harmony. Just think how would you like it to be in a bedroom with someone three times your size giving you a beating everyday with no chance to win the fight and nowhere to escape. Remove either fish the bullied one or the bully. Put them in separate tanks or give one away. There is no other way. I just can't imagine why people allow this to go on. If the fish has lost an eye the eye socket can heal if the waters kept clean with no medication. I have a 6 year old White Calvus which lost an eye from rubbing it's eye on the inside of a marine shell while breeding from a bacterial infection two years ago. The fish still breeds and is healthy with one eye.


Actually we don't allow it to go on, please don't asssume. I love my fish very much. Whenever we remove the bully a new one arises. My father has a larger tank with a variety of cichlids and it seems no matter what we do, once we remove the bully another one takes its place and goes after another fish. I take all of the wounded fish and try to nurse them back to health in my smaller tank. Though it seems no matter what we do, the fish that were born together that we've raised always attack in groups against the older fish.

When they go after another, it's usually the smaller ones going after the bigger ones. Ironically at first they went after all those of a different color so now there are a lot of red zebras left. We used to have an assortmant of colors now we don't.

After finding little help anywhere, I actually went to pet smart talked to one of the fish experts there and he told me to try melafix, though he was unsure of how it would work. After treatment with melafix my fish is fine now and his eye is again, in the socket and functioning. I've recently just added another fish to his tank that he doesn't seem to take well to but we'll see how that goes.

All in all, it's going well and I usually keep up with the workers at pet smart.

[bobrfish]

Sounds like eye was protruding and not out of socket. Eyeballs that protrude general indicate an internal bacterial infection. Melafix has some minor antibacterial and antifungal properties that can be helpful in treating superficial external bacterial and fungal infections. Melafix has no role in treating internal infections.
It is good to learn the sick fish will survive. Perhaps fish immune system resolved the infection.


In general, if mbuna like red zebras are fighting and one or more is losing, that indicates there is not enough rock work and not enough mbuna in the tank. When there is enough mbuna, the aggression will be balanced amongst all the fish and none will suffer more than any other.
Of course heavy stocking will require high water turnover, frequent and large water changes to prevent stressing the fish from nitrogen build up.

[beachcire]

Do you happen to know what the other various cichlids are? Red Zebras are about middle of the scale as far as Mbuna go on aggression. They are more aggressive than yellow labs and acei, but are not as aggressive as Kenyi or auratus. If there is a mixture of all of these, that could be a problem that will persist.

[James123]

When setting up tanks and adding fish one should do as much research on the particular species you decide to keep. I allways believe your way better off with one type of biotope. That is Africans from the same lake and South Americans from the same area. Mixing up a bunch of fish can turn into a nightmare. Many kinds of fish are agressive no matter what you do.