Fish missing eye- Please Help?

[skyluna]

I have a 70 gallon fish tank with 2 plecos, 3 cichlids (Green Terror, Jack Dempsey and Blood Parrot) as well as a Red Tail Shark. The Red Tail is much smaller than any of the others, but has grown up with all of them as she was one of my first additions to the tank. I have never seen any of the others exhibit aggression towards her, nor vice versa. Today, I noticed that she was missing an eye and is very torn up. The eye is just missing completely from the socket on one side. I immediately removed her from the tank and put her into a bucket of warm, salted and conditioned water and have been monitoring her for about 2 and a half hours now. She is floating upside down and has been for about an hour. I know this is sort of a lost cause, but I'm wondering if maybe it is just disorientation due to her new lack of an eyeball? She was swimming sideways for a while, and has deteriorated and cannot seem to swim right side up now. She is still moving and seems to be trying to swim, but every few seconds she stops and remains still, before continuing to move around a little bit. Honestly, I'm not sure if I should see if she makes it the night or if I should put her out of her misery.

Please help.

 

[HUKIT]

Welcome to AA,

Sounds like a victim of a attack from the JD or GT, of the fish is in that bad of shape so that's a personal decision whether you euthanize or not. The GT and JD will be tough to keep together in that small of a tank due to individual territory, if one claims the tank it will kill everyone else.

 

[skyluna]

She died about 2 hours after I posted this unfortunately. However, I don't honestly think it was an attack from one of the others. Maybe I'm just being naive but they've all grown up together and NEVER had any issues. She was a very peaceful fish and I have never witnessed any other fish bullying her or fighting with her. Also, my JD and GT have never had territory issues. Neither of them are very territorial, as uncharacteristic as I know that may be. I have lots of decorations in my tank so everyone has their little nook and it's not a big problem. In fact, many times, my fish all hang out in one cave together and it's big enough that's there are no issues. My boyfriend's GT is not territorial either, but his JD is. It seems fortunate that I have un territorial fishes!