Flowerhorn Popeye

Question

Flowerhorn popeye   My 18 months old 8" flowerhorn living in a 65 gallon tank has popeye in one eye with red spot at the side of the eye about 2 weeks ago.  By the time he's sick, I got nitrate reading really high (over 160 ppm) but ammonia/nitrate with 0 reading.  The guy in the pet shop told me to treat him with Kanaplex together with salt and change 25% water every two days.  After 6 days ( 3 doses ), only a little improvement on the bulgy but the red spot was healed.  by this time the nitrate level read around 40 - 80 ppm but nitrite level up to 1.0 ppm.

The pet shop guy told me to do 25% water change with the water from the other tank and treat this time with both Kanaplex and Furan 2.  After two doses ( 4 days ), nitrite lower to 0.25ppm but still only a little improvement on the bulgy eye.  My fish still want to eat but I only gave him a little food mixed with Kanaplex.  

Now the second full treatment was completed but my fish's eye still bulging and a little bit cloudy.  I totally treated him with medication for 11 days, and in between 25% water change every other day.  I really feel very sorry to see him suffer.  Kindly give me some advise.  Thanks.

Answer
Hi Wendy,
 That is a tough one.  Popeye can be caused by many things and is really a symptom as opposed to a particular disease.  It sounds like you have been treating it fairly aggressively and unfortunately I don't have any other suggestions.  Keeping his water in top shape is critical to any success so lots of water changes are key.

-- Ron C.
  rcoleman@cichlidresearch.com
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