Danio's eye fell out

[SANND]

Part I: I found one of my danios stuck to the intake valve of a filter tonight and when I got closer to her I could see one of her eyes was bloody and was bulding profusely. Before I could even put her in QT she started spasming and then her eye fell out and she died. Could this have pop-eye or was it more likely an injury from something else?

Part II: As I was taking the fish out of the net I noticed one of my mondo grasses looking very poorly so I took it out as well. It smelled kinda funny so I tore it apart and lifted it to my nose and it was one of the most rank smells I'd ever smelled!

Stats:

Cycled tank (3 months)
Ammonia: >0 but < .1
Nitrite: > .1 but < .3
Nitrate: > 5 but < 10
pH: 7.0
Phosphate: Off the chart

I assume the plant probably caused the rises as just this past sunday ammonia/nitrite was 0. I didn't test for Phos but I'm guessing if I had I wouldn've caught the problem sooner.

How do phos affect fish? Should I do more than a 50% water change? I've looked over everyone else closely and they have no signs of physical distress. Even the USD's are swimming around on their for a change!

 

[FroggyFox]

I'm sure someone will correct me if I'm wrong...but I dont think high levels of phosphate would do anything to your tank except maybe cause an algae bloom. If only for that reason I think I'd do a couple of water changes to get things under control.

I think it sounds like the danio had an injury of some sort...but of course someone will correct me if I'm wrong on this one too. I dont THINK popeye will only effect one eye...and I dont think its something that will kill a fish quite that quickly. Especially not a danio...which I've never heard a danio being susceptible to anything except jumping out of tanks (and other accidents) or fishy tuberculosis...they're usually pretty tough little guys.

Do you have any snails in your tank? Or fish that maybe died that you didn't find the body? I had an apple snail die of old age a couple weeks ago and HOLY MOLY that was nasty. I wanted the shell...but next time I dont think I will bother! -=shiver=-

 

[SANND]

Thanks for your reply FroggyFox

I do a fishy count every every morning and every evening (because the clown loaches worry me with their weird behavior and I"m always sure I"m gonna find one floating!) and after water changes BEFORE I dump the water out (first lesson learned ) and theres no MIA's currently. I was noticing that the hugely fat zebra danio that always looks like she's going to pop was acting very aggressivly towards the other danios, especially the longfinned blues. I'm wondering if she injured the smaller one?

No snails in this tank either. They don't make it past the 3 clown loaches. LOL

 

[Kuroshio]

was your danio small and prone to stick to the intake valve? If not, most fish don't get themselves into this predicament unless they are sick and weakened. My baby rasboras don't even get caught up/in those. It sounds as if your fish had an injury or illness that caused a bleed, which ultimately bled out into the ocular socked. Where ever the bleed originated from was probably the cause of death. Just my guess though. Sorry about that....

as far as the plant, I've had the stinkies before as well, I attribute it to my lack of knowledge in the plant department. Do you use any sort of fert?

 

[Fish Friend]

sorry to hear about the danio i had a fat danio once and it kept on swimming into the suckers for the filter and getting stuck in there... it was a very odd danio :S

 

[SANND]

She was on the small side but she seemed very healthy. I'm wondering if she got stuck by one of the clown loaches barbs? There's been no other loses since and no more stinky plants. I'm clueless about plants on land or in tanks so I'll just chalk it up to inexperience.