Blue Ram with Pop eye

**nickhope** · 10-11-2013, 04:19 AM

Hey,

I have 1 Blue ram that recently developed pop eye in one of the eyes. This happened after my Ich treatment.
From what I've been reading, 1 eye popeye means most likely he got his but kicked by the 2 other rams, or by some kribensis. For now I placed him in a tiny 10g tank because i cause other fish were picking at his bulging eye.

Anything I can do to speed up recovery ?
Is he a goner ?

**Cliff** · 10-11-2013, 05:01 AM

What are your water parameters right now (pH, ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate) ?

Popeye can be caused by poor water quality

**clusty** · 10-15-2013, 10:54 PM

Looks like I lost ownership of my post with the last forum screw up.
PH is around 7.2 and rest are 0.

Now after 1 more week in an isolation tank (crappier water quality since it's only 10 gal), the bulge got smaller but seems thicker white. I started yesterday tetracycline at the advice of a LFS guy.

**Byron** · 10-16-2013, 12:18 AM

The best medication for pop-eye is kanamycin. Seachem make a product called KanaPlex that works well. It is a white powder and you add it to the QT (good to do this in QT) three times, at 2 day intervals. It worked on my Congo Tetra.

If you do go with this, do a couple major water changes to rid the tank of the tetracycline.

Byron.

**Zerileous** · 10-16-2013, 05:46 AM

I will preface this with stating that my experience with aquaria is far less than byron's, though I have had some exposure to microbiology which may be of assistance.

This post seems to have some good information, though the source is unclear. http://www.monsterfishkeepers.com/fo...l=1#post577287

The kenamycin covers gram negative bacteria. Do you see any red blotches or streaks? This would be indicative of a gram negative infection according to the above post.

If it looks like fish TB (general wasting, ulcers, again according to the above post) then minocycline is the best treatment, but kenamycin covers as well. Tetracycline is in the same class as minocycline but probably doesn't provide the same coverage since mycobacteria (TB) has a cell wall that is difficult for most antibiotics to penetrate.

As with any disease, it is best to diagnose the cause and treat accordingly. Kenamycin does appear to be the most effective antibiotic for bacterial popeye based on the above post (though it's unfortunate that he didn't site the source) and my exposure to microbiology.