Eye injury not sure if our fish is suffering but very concerned - need expert advice?

[mylittledolphins]

Hello fellow fish fans my first post and I came looking for some experts who could help. We have two fish in a giant tank (125 gallons) and we've seperated them with a plastic screen because one (not pictured) was picking on the other. Prior to seperating them, our orange blood parrot appears to have injured his eye (potentially while getting away from his 'friend'). We had hoped that this would heal on its own, and he had been eating but now seems to have lost interest in food and we are not sure if there is anything we should / can do and most importantly if he is suffering because we don't want him to be suffering and we don't know.

As you should be able to see from the photos his right eye is the one with the injury, it's swolen right up and has some sort of growth now at the top.

We have checked amomnia, nitrates, nitrites, temperature and pH they are all in normal range and the same they have been for the entire life of the fish (4+ years)

The tank is cleaned regularly, and more so now that he's not eating the food as it just sits on the bottom un-eaten.

We have been changing 25-30% of the water, every other week at least to keep things clean and healthy.

We have four filters in use - two Aqueon large AT40 quietflow internal filters and an AquaClear 110 Gallon filter and a TopFin Large PowerFilter 75G

There are a few fake plants and a large Pirate ship all of which have been in the tank for a long long time - nothing new added

We have been adding stress coat to try to help

We have noticed that the fish has gotten lighter in color he was a much more vibrant orange color originally

We feed them both Hikari Chichlid pellets daily, and have always hand-fed keeping an eye on how many get eaten to stop them falling on the bottom and ensure they each get fed (originally the other fish would try to eat them all but we would persevere to make sure both got food)

So any idea what is happening here we are worried + welcome any advice/guidance from experts / someone who has seen this before?

 

[Andy Sager]

Pop-Eye can be from an internal bacterial infection and this looks like an advanced case of this. What's concerning is the " stuff" that seems to be oozing from the wound. It's the wrong shape for fungus and it's the wrong appearance for bacteria. It may be the fish was developing a tumor internally and now is pushing it's way out. It's obviously infected since the fish is no longer eating. That's a bad sign.
The only thing I can suggest is to place the fish in a hospital tank and treat with an antibiotic that works internally. If the pH of your water is less than 6.8, I'd use maracyn 2 ( minocycline). If your pH is higher than 7.2, I'd use kanamycin ( seachem Kanaplex). If your pH is between 6.8 and 7.2, I'd use a combination of Kanaplex and Nitrofurazone green. Once the infection is over ( it could take some time for that to happen), he may still lose the eye but fish can live long healthy lives with one eye.

Hope this helps.

 

[mylittledolphins]

Pop-Eye can be from an internal bacterial infection and this looks like an advanced case of this. What's concerning is the " stuff" that seems to be oozing from the wound. It's the wrong shape for fungus and it's the wrong appearance for bacteria. It may be the fish was developing a tumor internally and now is pushing it's way out. It's obviously infected since the fish is no longer eating. That's a bad sign.
The only thing I can suggest is to place the fish in a hospital tank and treat with an antibiotic that works internally. If the pH of your water is less than 6.8, I'd use maracyn 2 ( minocycline). If your pH is higher than 7.2, I'd use kanamycin ( seachem Kanaplex). If your pH is between 6.8 and 7.2, I'd use a combination of Kanaplex and Nitrofurazone green. Once the infection is over ( it could take some time for that to happen), he may still lose the eye but fish can live long healthy lives with one eye.

Hope this helps.

Thanks Andy - I wish the fish could talk and let me know! We don't actually have a hospital tank but your guidance seems sound. If there are no alternative opinions I'll try sourcing a tank and giving it a shot we'd like to save him if possible...

 

[Andy Sager]

Thanks Andy - I wish the fish could talk and let me know! We don't actually have a hospital tank but your guidance seems sound. If there are no alternative opinions I'll try sourcing a tank and giving it a shot we'd like to save him if possible...

That is a nasty infection so the sooner the better. Fingers crossed.