Popeye Part 2

Causes:
a) Scratch

From a scratch, scrape of bruise to the eye from encounters such as fighting with other fish, net abrasion, or coming into contact with a stationary object or organism in the aquarium. Normally, there is only one pop eye. If it is minor inflection, the eye will usually return to its normal appearance without blindness, it can be solved with water change and proper food, this is normally not fatal.

Unless it is very severe and the treatment is not provided or is not ineffective, the eye(s) may burst or disappear altogether. The fish may slowly starve to die.

b) Diseases

Popeye/cloudy eyes can be an outward sign that another disease is present which may be of bacterial, fungal or other origin, such as an internal infection called Ichthyophonus hoferi (fungal disease), or a possible sign of Vibrio (bacterial disease). The fish will die to the disease that caused popeye but will not die from popeye. It is more difficult to diagnosed and treated.

c) Excess copper treatment

Yes, prolong copper treatment may resulted in popeye. It is basically due to the toxins or contaminates in the tanks. The solution is to improve the quality of the water.

Base on my experience on the copper treatment for ich, it is best not exceed more than 5 weeks of copper treatment, in fact three weeks is sufficient to kill ich.

d) Other possible causes

Nutritional deficiency, a gas embolism caused by a sudden rise in tank temperature and the gas bubble disease theory are some of the possible causes.

In the next part of the popeye, I will discuss some of the methods of treatments and the medicines......

Popeye Part 1

Popeye is a disease that cause one or both the eyes to appear like there is a air trapped inside or behind the eyes which causes the eye to enlarge and bulge out. It is most likely to be caused by bacteria.

There is two classifications of bacteria:

a) gram-positive

b) gram-negative

What is the difference between gram-positive and gram-negative?

Using a particular staining process, the bacteria retained (positive) or lost (negative) a violet color (stains) during this process.

It is found that most bacteria that cause disease in marine fish are gram-negative. Popeye is most likely caused by the gram-negative bacteria. Unlike ich, popeye normally does not kill fish in a couple of days, especially larger ones. Unless, it is coupled with some other viral, it may die in a couple of days. Furthermore, popeye in itself is typically not contagious to other fishes in the community.

Symptoms:
This is what I find :
1. Fish starts to hide in some place so that to prevent bully by other fishes
2. It starts to loss appetite
3. Of cause, the pop eye...
4. Not active anymore.....

To be continue.......

Lionfish eating market prawn

I have been trying to train the lion fish to eat market prawn so that it will not eat live food; freshwater prawn or small fishes. After more than a month, it finally it is able to eat the market prawn. Not more killing of innocent fishes or prawns, which I hate to see and do so. I am very happy now.......

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1bIo0o5Raig

Planted Marine Tank

I read an article on the planted marine aquarium by George Farmer. It talks on how to set up a planted marine aquarium. I am very impressed with the pictures and the knowledge learned from the article. I wish one day I will try a planted marine aquarium.

Courtesy of George Farmer

Courtesy of George Farmer

For more information on how to set up a planted marine aquarium, please visit:

http://www.practicalfishkeeping.co.uk/content.php?sid=3725

Food Nutrition and Essential Elements

Fish need nutrients such as Proteins, Carbohydrates, Fats and Vitamins. These nutrients are from the food the fish ate. I will not talk about these nutrients as you can google to find out more.

Beside these nutrients they get from the foods, there is another thing that is important to the health of the fish that is Trace Elements. In the ocean, there are plenty of different natural elements and however the fish need no less than 13 of them to live. This are the 'essential elements' or sometimes called trace elements which you normally can buy off the shelve. Some examples are Kent Marine Essential Elements, Seachem Marine Trace Elements, etc.

The elements are taken in by the fish from the water that surrounds them through ingested (swallowed in foods), migrated into the fish through their skin, and passed through the gills. The elements get depleted  from the aquarium water.

There are other processes that deplete these elements in our aquariums. They include skimmers, marine organisms (Live Rock, inverts, corals, algae, microbes, etc.), precipitation and complexing with other chemicals and substrates, and losses due to carbon and other such treatments.

Sometimes, water change can not keep in pace with this depletion of the small quantities of the micro elements. Thus, small quantities of element additives put into tank water are needed for proper fish health.

 I am using Seachem Marine trace, I normally dose it at middle of the water change period. This is because during water change, the elements are replenished through the new water added and at the middle of the period, I just do a top-up.

My Marine Fish tank as at 10 Sept 11

Top Tank

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_N2ciYQI2RA

While looking for an additional tank at the begining of the Sept, I added a Purple Tang and Tomini Tang after quarantine.  Wow, the purple tang started to eat pellets on first day... Always like to add Achilles Tangs and Atlantic Blue tang, guess  will have to KIV until I have cycled a new tank.

One unfortunate thing happens, I lost two Green Chromis due to fall into the overflow, I could not take them out sadly.... Now take all the precautions to prevent any re-occurrence again.

Chromis is one of the most hardy fish. Three Chromis out of 4 are from my first batch of fishes that added in the tank. If you want to start the marine aquarium, always start with Chromis first not clown fish or demsel fish, this is because Chromis are not aggressive at all, in fact they are very very peaceful fish. And  it is very easy for you to add any type of fish you want in the future.

Bottom Tank

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-O7gp8pHA9M

It remains the same as at 27 Aug 11, all are doing very well. I am thinking of adding a clown triggerfish (last fish to add)... until now, I have not find a suitable size clown triggerfish, will take my time to search.

Feeding Fish

Beside the water quality, the next important things is providing the required nutrition to the fish. A well-fed with the required nutrition fish is able to heal itself from an injury, fend off bacterial infections, and resist other diseases through immunity and protein-charged barriers (e.g., a healthy mucous coating). This is what I am going to discuss.

Finding the right kinds of foods that suitable to the kind of fish being cared for is sometimes not so easy and maintain the correct diets that have the required nutrients for the fish required time and discipline. 

Before buying any fish, you need to understand the eating behaviour, whether it is carnivore (meat eating fish), herbivore (vegetable eating fish) and omnivore (both meat and vegetable eating fish). With this categorization is the basics for deciding what foods are appropriate for any particular fish.

The eating behaviour will determine the feeding frequency and the time that you feed the fish, for example, it is best to feed hermit crab at night when the light is off and all the fishes are asleep. Other example, the most of the fishes, such as Angel fish are small meal eaters because its digestive track can take small intake of foods as they are wildly caught. It will create some inconveniences for people with full time jobs, so try to feed them three meals per day.

I normally feed the fish in morning and night myself and have a timer that feed the fish once a day at around 1pm. This will control the amount of foods and observe the fish during feeding to check on the health of the fish. By reducing the amount of food in the mid day over time; after some time, your fishes will custom to your style of feeding, then you can feed them twice a day. Below is the timer I used.

Next time, I will discuss about the type of additives/nutrients required and my feeding methods and foods.