Swordtail Popeye or Injury?

[DaniV]

As I was dosing my 20 gallon tank with Easy Green today, I happened to notice that one of my Swordtails' eyes has bulged out.  The scales around it are pale in color, but they're still swimming around OK.  I've only got 1 quarantine tub and it's currently housing 5 Neon Tetras going through the Med Trio process.  I'm not sure if it's indeed Popeye, or the result of some kind of injury that took place, and how to properly treat the poor thing.  Would it be possible to put the Swordtail with the Tetras to treat since they'd all be exposed to the same medicine, or will that screw up the quarantining process for the Tetras?

Here are the tank specs:

• pH: 7.5
• Nitrates: 5
• Hardness: 214 (12 drops)
• Nitrite: 0
• Ammonia: 0
• KH/Buffer: 107 (6 drops)
• Water Temperature: 79

And here are pics for reference:

Edited February 28, 2023 by DaniV

[Fish Folk]

Often eye injury is the first step, followed up by secondary issues. I’m guessing some injury occurred here. But if your water change plan isn’t on a regular schedule, and if you’re overfeeding (✋I tend to overfeed), then bacteria has ample occasion to infect wounds.

Speaking personally, I would (1) perform a 30% water change every week (2) add 1-tablespoon of dissolved aquarium salt per 10-gallons (3) buy fresh food, but cut feeding in 1/2 — old food is unhelpful  (4) if condition _worsens_ after 2 full weeks of this regimen, I would decide whether to treat with an API medicine designed for popeye, or just to leave the fish on its own.

Typically popeye does not spread, per say. But poor water quality can impact all fish in the tank.

[DaniV]

I typically do my tank maintenance on Saturdays, though I'm usually changing about 25%, so I can take a little more out this weekend.   I added a little bit of Aquarium Salt to the tank before I went out today.  I only added about 2 tsp cause I have Nerite Snails and I don't wanna end up killing them.  Already I can see some of the puffiness has started to go down, very slightly but I'll take it!

[Colu]

On 2/28/2023 at 6:29 PM, DaniV said:

I typically do my tank maintenance on Saturdays, though I'm usually changing about 25%, so I can take a little more out this weekend.   I added a little bit of Aquarium Salt to the tank before I went out today.  I only added about 2 tsp cause I have Nerite Snails and I don't wanna end up killing them.  Already I can see some of the puffiness has started to go down, very slightly but I'll take it!

Nerite snails are fine with salt they need it to breed if you don't have live plants I would up the level of salt to one table spoon for 3 gallons that should help reduce any possible fluid buildup in the eye if after a week your seeing no improvement or it's getting worse then I would do a course of maracyn2 in food feeding a small amount twice a day for 7 days as Popeye can be caused by a bacterial infection active ingredient minocycline also has anti-inflammatory properties 

[DaniV]

Good news!  The swelling has gone done tremendously!  It's still slightly raised, but you couldn't tell from a distance that something was wrong.  And he's swimming around with the rest of the crew again!  Hallelujah aquarium salt!