My poor lampeye tetra is missing an eye.

[Thyleran]

Hey, all. I recently got a lot of three lampeye tetra on Monday. They were all fine, except for one smaller one which had a torn gill. I put them in with my serpae tetra, who was a bit aggressive at first, but they began to get a long soon afterwards. I thought all was fine until this morning when I realized the hurt lampeye's eye was missing. He still has one, and he's in a three-gallon aquarium with rocky substrate, a 7.5 watt flat heater, and a large fake plant. What should I do? I don't want to euthanize him but I'm not sure how to help him.

 

[Andy Sager]

Hey, all. I recently got a lot of three lampeye tetra on Monday. They were all fine, except for one smaller one which had a torn gill. I put them in with my serpae tetra, who was a bit aggressive at first, but they began to get a long soon afterwards. I thought all was fine until this morning when I realized the hurt lampeye's eye was missing. He still has one, and he's in a three-gallon aquarium with rocky substrate, a 7.5 watt flat heater, and a large fake plant. What should I do? I don't want to euthanize him but I'm not sure how to help him.

Fish can live fine with 1 eye so unless you see any infection or the fish doesn't eat, I'd do nothing.
Just make sure the Serpae don't attack the fish. A 3 gallon tank is really too small for either Tetra species so you are working with a bad situation to start with. They also do better in schools rather than singles so you might want to consider putting the 2 fish in with the other lampeyes when you know the 1 eye is eating.

 

[Colin_T]

Get rid of the serpae tetra/s. They are renown fin nippers and regularly cause problems unless kept in a huge tank with at least 20 in the group.