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I got some 5 silver dollars in a 90 gallon tank with some other fish. To my horror this morning, one of the Silver dollars was missing a single eyeball. That one also isn't schooling with the other silver dollars. I really don't want an ugly one eyed fish in my tank. So I think I might flush it, but I'm going to wait. Also with having a fish missing an eyeball in the tank, could it cause/create unwanted infections to itself or other fish?

As for the cause of this, do you think maybe the other silver dollars took out his eyeball, or another fish or something else (filter, gravel, driftwood, etc) in the tank did?

What other fish in the tank?

I wouldn't euthanize it just yet, and if you do, do it properly and definitely don't just flush it. I'd wait and see if he's having trouble competing for food or the like. I had a WCMM which lived for 2 years missing his right eye.

I know your silver dollar is not the most beautiful thing in the world, but killing a fish for aesthetic reasons is, at the very least, distasteful.

As far as your concern about disease spreading, I don't think that is anything to worry about. As long as he's getting enough food, there's no reason he can't be as healthy as the other fish once his eye heals.

If your tank is clean and your fish is otherwise healthy it probably shouldn't get infected or get fungus. Even if it did get infected your other fish probably will be healthy enough that it won't effect them.

I would wager that it's probably interaction between the silver dollars that caused it to lose its eye. Considering I have filters, gravel, and driftwood and have never had a fish lose its eye, anyway. On the other hand, I have never kept Silver Dollars, leaving this to be a distinct possibility.

You might not like it but some people are fine with fish that are not 100% perfect; I have a Syno that's missing its left pectoral fin. Y'know, kinda like Nemo from Finding Nemo.

In any case, you definitely shouldn't flush it. There's no reason to kill a fish that's almost perfectly fine. If you don't want a fish, a good option is to trade it back to the LFS (or sell it or adopt it to someone else). You might at least get a little store credit, although I'm not sure about this case. But definitely a whole lot better than flushing it.

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The aquarist is one who must learn the ways of the biologist, the chemist, and the veterinarian.

I decided I'll keep the little ugly. I don't mind if a fish's fins are messed up. But the eye is quite important in looks to me. At least there is other fish in the tank to draw people's attention away from the ugly. If he was missing both eyes though, would that be ok then to flush it?

I imagine so, as a matter of humaneness -- he'd presumably have trouble finding adequate food.

I've had one-eyed fish before, though, and I still find that my (admittedly feeble) sense of humaneness tends to override my aesthetic sensibilities. They may be ornaments, but they're LIVING, conscious ornaments, and as such I think we have some duty toward them.

FLushing is the worst way to enthuisianise the fish...So whatever you decide to do, DO NOT FLUSH. THe poor thing would have to go through the stress of the flush, then to the polluted and sludge filled septic tanks, which eventually lead to the waste management company with thier killer chemicals and stuff. If you are going to enthuisianise it, which i belive you shouldnt, then you porbably should put it into a 1g clean milk jar, and put in a few drops of clove oil. This will put the fish to sleep, and kill it painlessly.

Could it be popeye, that someone has bitten off? Then, there could be some more aeromonas or pseudomonas in the tank. I would either use Jungle Labs fungus clear and melafix to be sure that the bacteria is gone, but i also caution to wait until you know if it really is the bacteria causing it.

Good Luck!

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No, the whole eyeball is missing. you can see the socket. It is red color where the eyeball used to be. All the fish got enough food. I think maybe one of the silver dollars ate his eye off. 1 of the 5 silver dollars is also much bigger than the other 4.

I'll agree with GobyFan -- if you're going to kill it, don't flush it. I myself use a sharp blow on the head with a hammer or heavy rock for the purpose; it looks gruesome, but it's the only technique I can think of that kills the fish so instantaneously that it can't have time to feel more than a flicker of pain.

In working in a lab, I have used ice baths for euthanization; these fish would eventually be frozen for later study, though. Ethanol has also been used; ethanol served doubly for euthanization and as a preservation fluid. Neither are painless, but preferable over flushing IMO. One of the other students described a previous student that had to euthanize fish by cutting their spine; I think that this is probably one of the most painless ways to kill a fish. At the very least it's quick and to the point.

Even if both eyes were missing I don't think I could kill a fish. I mean, your fish can die from all sorts of different things, I would just feel bad in actually killing an otherwise healthy fish. On the other hand, silver dollars are visual animals, which makes them different from, say, a catfish that uses sense of smell to find food. I'm still not sure I could do it.

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The aquarist is one who must learn the ways of the biologist, the chemist, and the veterinarian.

If possible, try giving special attention to the one eyed SD & treat it better than the others. At least that what i would do.

I have heared about Ice baths, but never tried them.

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Just a note, eyeballs have been known to grow back. I've had two goldfish with one eyeball missing that grew back, as well as a cory.

Random blurb: Has anyone else noticed that blind cave tetras are growing their eyeballs back? While I was working at the LFS we started getting shipments in where they started to have tiny tiny eyes...

Has anyone else noticed that blind cave tetras are growing their eyeballs back? While I was working at the LFS we started getting shipments in where they started to have tiny tiny eyes...

LOL too funny....I guess they cant be called "Blind" any more. Maybe you should keep them in a dark environment from now on. Like, keep the light on their tank off...Ask your supplier to do so also, as they might lose value if they arent blind anymore....

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Just to add to all of the above messages, DON'T FLUSH!!! A search on the forums here will probably bring up reasonable solutions for euthanasing fish. From what I've read, clove oil is probably the kindest way, and personally I use an ice bath (put a plastic container of water in the freezer until the surface just begins to freeze over, smas a hole in it and drop the fish in). Even this though, I don't enjoy. The death seems to be very quick, but still........ By the way, I've only had to euthanase Neon Tetras with Neon Tetra disease, so I've no idea how well this method works on a larger fish - might be a more unpleasant experience.

Your fish will be fine with only one eye, and in some ways it's nice to have a fish thats different. I have a Dwarf Chain Loach that lost an eye in a fight about a year ago and he's absolutely fine. Flys around the tank with the rest of them happy as can be. However he's the only one with a name as he's the only one I can differentiate, and not just because of his appearance. He also swims differently to the others, so that he can see better with his one eye, often at an angle, usually at the floor looking for food! But the point is, I can tell which one he is at a distance from the tank, just from the way he swims, so it can be nice to have a fish that is different.

"Has anyone else noticed that blind cave tetras are growing their eyeballs back? While I was working at the LFS we started getting shipments in where they started to have tiny tiny eyes... "

I'd read this somewhere - practical fishkeeping I think - but I can't find it again now. Apparently the captive bred fish are developing eyes as there is now a use for them, if they're living in an environment with light. Kind of ruins the creationists argument......

Actually, if Cave Tetras are doing that, it's rather extraordinary, because it's NOT a Darwinian process -- it's Lamarckian.

Lamarck was Darwin's great rival in the 19th century, before genetic mechanisms were understood, and his version of evolution was that the changes made in the bodies and brains of living things by their own life experiences actually modified their genetic structures and so produced children who tended to have the same overall physical characteristics that their parents had been FORCED to acquire during their lives. (For instance, the giraffe was the resulf of generations of one particular kind of antelope straining its neck upwards to reach tall branches, and so very slowly creating changes in its genetic structure to produce children with slightly stretched necks.) Before we understood genetic mechanisms, this was perfectly defensible scientifically; but now we know that this kind of reverse transfer of an organism's lifetime physical changes back to its genetic code doesn't happen.

So why are Cave Tetras starting to get their eyes back when they grow up in light (IF, of course, they really are)? Presumably because the Darwinian genetic mutation that caused them to lose their visible eyes in those dark Mexican caves is contingent in nature -- for some reason, it sets off a mechanism that causes their eyes to fail to develop ONLY if, from their earliest days as fry, they are not exposed to light.

Blind cave tetra fry are born with eyes. if they are not exposed to light as they grow then the eyes gradually disappear. hwoever if they are raised with light then the eyes remain and i guess are used. i dont really think it ruins anyones arguement. anyways all that has to be done to solve the problem is that the breeders just need to keep the fry in the dark for awhile.

The true test of character is not how much we know how to do, but how we behave when we dont know what to do.

Oh, I don't know. There's something so sad about all those fish tapping their way around their tank with those little black canes...

Update on the Silvar Dollar. He is alive and well. However... he hasn't grown too much. His other friends got WAY bigger in size since this thread.

The story behind Blind Cave Tetras turns out to be still more remarkable -- this week's "Science News" (Jan. 12) has an article on research confirming that different populations of BCTs isolated in separate Mexican caves have evolved their blindness in different ways, utilizing different modifications to their genes -- with the result that when you crossbreed BCTs from SOME pairs of different Mexican caves (but not others), the offspring can see because the separately evolved blindness genes are both recessive and cancal each other out!

http://www.citizens1st.com/story.asp?idstr=113773642

This raises the question of why blind fish (and blind cave or underground animals in general) do evolutionarily lose their eyes -- one would think that, in a totally dark environment, it wouldn't make any difference to their survival chances whether they had still-working eyes or not. The reason, I suspect, is that the cornea of an eyeball is more vulnerable to allowing in infections from the outside water (or air or dirt) than the skin is -- and so, in an environment where eyes are useless, they do end up having some actual NEGATIVE survival value after all.

Just a note, eyeballs have been known to grow back. I've had two goldfish with one eyeball missing that grew back, as well as a cory.

I've had cories lose eyes before (and a female Apisto. pertensis that seemed to enjoy plucking them from the cories - yes the cories got moved as soon as that was discovered) and I've had tetras with missing eyes - none of which ever grew back.

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