Yasha blind???

[Tchung23]

I’ve had my Yasha for about 6 months. He has been eating well and living with his pistol shrimp. I think his shrimp died recently so the yasha has been out of his burrow swimming around. Lately I’ve noticed that he has trouble finding food and I have to target feed him but he will only grab a few bites but it also looks like he can’t see the food as he trying to eat but misses the food. Is it possible he lost his vision?? Yes appear fine. No clouding if eyes at all??

 

[vetteguy53081]

I’ve had my Yasha for about 6 months. He has been eating well and living with his pistol shrimp. I think his shrimp died recently so the yasha has been out of his burrow swimming around. Lately I’ve noticed that he has trouble finding food and I have to target feed him but he will only grab a few bites but it also looks like he can’t see the food as he trying to eat but misses the food. Is it possible he lost his vision?? Yes appear fine. No clouding if eyes at all??

One way to determine is to slowly approach with a net and see if it responds

 

[Tchung23]

One way to determine is to slowly approach with a net and see if it responds

Yeah he’s pretty easy to catch now. I can even use my hand.

 

[vetteguy53081]

Yeah he’s pretty easy to catch now. I can even use my hand.

I was hoping you would not be at this point. Often bright light can cause this as is mixing medication
If neither of these apply, a fish becoming moribund is often a cause and in time becomes a loss
Ethromyacin(Maracyn) helps eye issues but often from injury or infection which is not the case here

 

[Tchung23]

I was hoping you would not be at this point. Often bright light can cause this as is mixing medication
If neither of these apply, a fish becoming moribund is often a cause and in time becomes a loss
Ethromyacin(Maracyn) helps eye issues but often from injury or infection which is not the case here

I guess I’m just counting down the days. So sad. Not sure why this happened??

 

[Jay Hemdal Verified Community Expert]

I guess I’m just counting down the days. So sad. Not sure why this happened??

Blindness is fish is rare, and when it happens, the cause is not always known. Like in humans, the causes are typically not treatable.

Here is some text that I wrote about it:

Blindness
A very common symptom reported by home aquarists is that one of their fish has become blind. This, more often than not, is a result of a fish becoming ill to the point that it is moribund (close to death) and is not just blind. Basically, a fish that bumps around the aquarium, running into the tank sides and ignoring food may not be blind at all, it may just be dying. A truly blind fish will behave as if it is night, and may even show its nighttime coloration. The fish will swim very cautiously, so as not to run into obstacles, and it will orientate itself in the normal upright position, and if food is added to the tank, it will attempt to seek it out, perhaps by moving its mouth along the bottom of the tank, snapping up any food that it may come in contact with. It is important for the aquarist to be able to differentiate between the subtle differences between these two problems as a truly blind fish may live for many years given extra care, while a moribund fish will continue its
health decline and soon die if the problem is not corrected.

Bright aquarium lighting is sometimes implicated in causing blindness, especially in lionfish (Pterois sp.). Only anecdotal reports of this are available, and since aquarium lighting is many times less intense than on tropical reefs, cause and effect cannot be linked. Feeding freshwater fish to marine predators (again – often lionfish) are also reported by home aquarists to cause blindness. In these cases, it is most likely that the predator has developed fatty liver disease, and the fish has become moribund from that.

Jay