Please help with my Coral Beauty Cloudy eye

[David Schmaus]

Here is the scoop. I have a 20QT tank setup. It cycled for 3 weeks and the parameters are 1.23 A - 0 N - slight N - 10 I have a Fairy Wrasse and a Coral Beauty that has been in there for 2 weeks. (bought from the LFS) I am treating the tank with coppersafe with the recommended dose. I do a 4 gallon water change every other day. The plan is to QT for 6 weeks

I took some pictures two days ago for my sons facebook and the eye looked good (went back and looked at the pics). This morning the one eye is cloudy. Here are pics


I guess my question is, what do I do?

Some other questions are

1. What caused it?
2. Do I treat with medication and will the coppersafe be a issue with another medication?
3. If I treat will it affect the Wrasse.

Thanks so much for your time! My son and I are just trying to do things right.

[Joel]

I have a hunch, that eye looks like the work of tematodes. If it is trematodes, copper has absolutely no affect on this parasite.

Get some tap water (freshwater - 1/2 gal or so) about the same temperature as the aquarium, add dechlorinator to remove chlorine from the water, put the angel in the fresh water for about 10 minutes. If it is trematodes, you will see the parasites start to turn white and eventually they will fall of. The parasites will kind of look like scales falling off, this is a fairly large parasite.

When you dip the fish, it's body will bend, it will lay on it's side and look pretty bad for the first few minutes. Don't panic, leave it in the fresh water for the full 10 minutes.

As long as the fresh water that you dip the fish in is close to the same temp and PH as the aquarium, it is not a very risky procedure.

Try this and report back what you see, from there I will have a better idea what your dealing with and can advise on what next to do.

Joel

[David Schmaus]

We talking tap or RO?  Have access to both

[lazylivin]

Be careful with the RO it will have low PH and Tap water may be to high so possibly a mix to get the right PH.

[David Schmaus]

Be careful with the RO it will have low PH and Tap water may be to high so possibly a mix to get the right PH.

Yea my ro is in the 6's   I havent tested tap.  I will.   I have a buffer i can use too...

Thanks for all the help everyone.   I will report back tomorrow...

[cyberwollf]

RO will have lower oxygen levels, I dont know if that matters for only 10Mins, but i usualy put an airstone in mine.  Not sure if that even matters though...

[HUNGER]

got to love joel

[Joel]

Do not use R/O water unless you you have spent the time to adjust it to have a ph / hardness similar to your aquarium water.

If you have city water (not well water) it should be close right out of the tap. We have very hard alkiline water in this area due to the lime stone beds we sit on. You must use a de-chlorinater such as amquel or similar to remove the chlorine from the water prior to dipping the angel in it.

I don't know for sure that your fish has flukes / trematodes but that appearance is a symptom of them. The freshwater dip will help us know what we are dealing with because if your fish does have them, you will be able to see them. This is a tricky parasite to deal with, it is selective about what it feeds on (not all fish will get this parasite) and there are steps & procedures that are very specific to this parasite that must be done to correct it. I'm not offering advise on how to deal with trematodes yet because we don't yet know if that is what your fish has, the freshwater dip will teach us this. This is not something you want to wait to do, this is a very destructive parasite, if your angel does have it, your don't have much time to fix it.

I'm going to send you a PM, please feel free to respond and I will help you with this.

Joel

[David Schmaus]

Do not use R/O water unless you you have spent the time to adjust it to have a ph / hardness similar to your aquarium water.

If you have city water (not well water) it should be close right out of the tap. We have very hard alkiline water in this area due to the lime stone beds we sit on. You must use a de-chlorinater such as amquel or similar to remove the chlorine from the water prior to dipping the angel in it.

I don't know for sure that your fish has flukes / trematodes but that appearance is a symptom of them. The freshwater dip will help us know what we are dealing with because if your fish does have them, you will be able to see them. This is a tricky parasite to deal with, it is selective about what it feeds on (not all fish will get this parasite) and there are steps & procedures that are very specific to this parasite that must be done to correct it. I'm not offering advise on how to deal with trematodes yet because we don't yet know if that is what your fish has, the freshwater dip will teach us this. This is not something you want to wait to do, this is a very destructive parasite, if your angel does have it, your don't have much time to fix it.

I'm going to send you a PM, please feel free to respond and I will help you with this.

Joel

Thanks for the help.   You are awesome.