2 jawfish gone blind

D

Darby

It seems that both of my yellowhead jawfish have gone blind. I had a pretty high nitrate spike in december, and I'm still sitting at about 60ppm. It's slowly going down, but the jawfish aren;t recovering. Neither responds to food on a stick, but will gulp at anything squirted their way. Despite being blind, they're impossible to catch to mov into a hospital tank. And NOW one of them has a hole in his side! They keep hanging on though. I feel so bad for them...

Anyways, I know Deb had one blind for a while, and so I'm wondering if it might also be a factor of age, or maybe also diet?
 
Oh gosh! Poor jaws. I'm sorry about the problems your having with them. I can't help with treatment or helping you catch them, sadly. I can suggest you add some small mechanical filteration and use Purigen in your tank. It won't take the place of water changes and it won't remove your nitrates, but it will neutralize them and prevent any further damage. I keep a small bag in a media bag under a strong flow area in my tank.

Best of luck with these guys.
 
Darn Darby I didn't see this when you posted. My jawfish also went blind. I started treating her food with Selcon and manual fed her 3-4 times a day using a long feeding tube with mysis, plankton, and other meaty food. She finally figured it out and would bite on the end and I would squirt the food in her mouth. I did that for I guess 3-4 months before her eyesight started coming back. She did learn to move around the tank very well by memorizing where everything was and would freak if I accidentally moved something while cleaning the tank. But she just rememorized her path. When her sight was the worst she slept with/by the clownfish pair. When her eyesight improved she would move to another part of the tank and open her mouth as a warning if they came near. I still feed her manually, but at least she can see the food now. However she's not as fast as she was when younger so sometimes it's hit or miss when she goes for food. I hope your fish came out of it and got better.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top