Injured Tetra - Trigger Warning

[MapleNeil]

TRIGGER WARNING!!!
If you are sensitive and hearing about a sad fish story with an injury will hurt your feelings, please don't read this

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I noticed one of my Black Phantom Tetras has a light spot near his eye and the eye itself is actually out of place....like the eye was partly torn off. Then I noticed the black vertical stripe they all have in their eyes is at a 45 degree angle

This tetra seems to be doing quite fine otherwise. There is some ... competition I guess? between the male tetras, where one lunges at the other and the the other backs away, like jockeying for position, but it didn't look too serious.

Also, there is a juvenile rainbow shark in the tank who scares the tetras, but they usually just get out of his way. It happens so fast I can't see if he is biting them or just scaring them.

However... this reminded me of a terrible accident with the gravel vacuum.. one of the tetras got stuck in the hose, but I quickly reversed the water flow and he got out. I hadn't noticed any problems with him after that so I thought he was okay. But perhaps this is the same tetra.

What should I do? He's basically swimming around with his eye partly torn off He seems otherwise healthy.

 

[charliebankston]

I'd treat with some antiseptic like melafix and pimafix or a broad spectrum antibiotic like api erythromycin just to ward off infection. It won't recover its eye, but i have 2 African cichlids in my tank that have lost 1 eye due to injury, and they are fine. Most fish are pretty tough. He'll learn to compensate. Mine mostly stay with the eye less side near the glass to see what's happening. But it's also an aggressive tank so they are on guard by keeping an eye out. They come around to eat like normal. One has been this way for almost a year

 

[Autumnsky]

Yes on the above, and check your water parameters.

Ammonia
NitrIte
Nitrate

pH

TDS

GH/KH aka general hardness and alkalinity/ calcium

The article in my signature can give a load of good advice, including info about the nitrification cycle, aka "cycle".