re: black molly eye injury

Question
Dear Karen,
I have had a nice black molly with 3 other goldfish for one year in a large tank (a Boyu imported tank). They were alright all this time, but just a few days ago the black molly got what looked like a small little red ball inside his left eye (inside the transparent bulbous covering. After two days it has spread to be filling half of his eye covering. So it seems to be blood rising up. I am quite worried and suppose he must have got injured somehow. What do you advise and if it is an internal injury is there anyting to do or will it get better by itself?
Thanks a lot.  

Answer
Hello Leslie,
It sounds like your Molly has had an injury to his eye. And a infection could have gotten into and infected his eye. Many illnesses attack at the site of injury by being bullied by other fish or injury by tank ornaments. Bacterial infections are quite common occurance with this scenario, though I don't know exactly what type of infection your molly might have, I would generally recommend you first insure his aquarium water is very clean and fresh, addding some aquarium salt will help and can treat some infections along with a good medication. I don't want to immediately destroy the beneficial bacterial colonies in your aquarium which are so important for healthy water conditions so if I were you I would first use the all-natural antibiotics Melafix and Pimafix. These organic medications are created for several fish ailments are particularly good at treating illnesses which are bacterial or fungal related. And they won't harm the biological filter bacteria and won't stress fish out like chemical meds can and will.

So your best bet is to insure his water is clean and warm, that he is fed a healthy vitamin rich diet, and gets a full treatment or even possibly an extended treatment of Melafix and a Pimafix combination. Unless it is a potentiallly extremely damaged area, I would highly imagine his eye would heal with time and good care.
Also, be sure not to let other fish bully him because he is hurt..

Well I really hope this helps! If you have anymore questions, feel free to email me...

My very best wishes, I hope he gets well very soon!
Happy fishkeeping!
Karen~