Blind Percula Clown?

[chrisbrph]

Anyone ever hear of a fish going blind? One of the 6 percula clowns, the largest of the bunch, stopped eating about a 2 months ago and has been losing body mass ever since.

He has been swimming erratically and is bumping into everything in the tank (live rock, glass, stonies etc....)

Based on this behavior, I was about to extract him from the tank as not to infect other inhabitants- to my surprise, he was easy to catch- too easy, like he didn't see the net coming....

My wife jokingly said she thought he was blind.....

We have had this group of true perculas for over 8 years and all have names.

Based on her joke, I put some thawed mysis shrimp into the net and held him in the tank against the glass where he ate like a carnivore.

I have been capturing him in the net to feed him for 3 weeks now and he is absolutely healthy again other than his sight.

His eyes are not fully black like the other percs in the tank and have become reflective to the lighting.

Anyone ever hear of such a strange occurrance?

Chris :confused:

 

[ReefWannabe]

Well he is getting to be an old man lol. Ive never heard of a fish going blind, but im sure its possible.

 

[jhnrb]

If there is no indication of disease, cloudy eyes, infection, red spots, leasions, etc. then most likely the fish is just getting old. fish have failures as any living thing does. it is not real common to hear of fish going blind, but, it is not totally uncommon either. as the eye sight fails it becomes more difficult for the fish to compete for food and so you can be humane and do away with fish smith or you can continue to feed the fish in hopes he will survive a bit longer, however, if the fishes difficulty is from an infection you would expose the remainder of the crew. so your call. if it were mine i would try to see if i could determine the exact difficulty and cause which you may not be able to do both. if the fish cannot contribute something to the system do away with it. if there is still some contribution to the system keep it. good luck keep us posted.