Black Skirt Tetra Help!!!

[SicilianDefense]

Hi, I have a 29 gallon aquarium. It's been doing pretty well so far, up to now. No diseases have ever been introduced (except ick, which I got rid of very quickly), and the fish all seem healthy. However, One of my Black skirt tetras seems to have an eye problem. The fish's eye seems to "pop out", and it's bulging like crazy. The weird part is that only one eye is that way.

Other fish also seems to have bigger eyes than usual, but nothing compared to this. Anyway to solve this problem?

[lauraleellbp]

It's usually caused by a bacterial infection, often associated with poor water quality (did you pay close attention to your water parameters while and just after treating the tank for ich? Some treatments can mess up a tank's biofilter.)

I'd probably Quarantine all the fish that currently show any symptoms and start them on an antibiotic. Salt, Melafix, and Pimafix are the meds I use most commonly.

[SicilianDefense]

Thanks for the advice. Turns out the water quality isn't the best. But even so, if water quality is poor, how come the other fish are doing fine?

[lauraleellbp]

It's called "old tank syndrome"- when tanks deteriorate slowly, fish are pretty adaptable. They can become so acclimated to poor water quality that they actually struggle when the water is changed out with cleaner water- just because the change in parameters is so dramatic.

My advice- start doing a series of daily 10% water changes. After 5 days or so, if the water quality is still an issue, bump that up to 20% daily. Once you've got the ammonia and nitrites stable at 0ppm, then I'd medicate the tank.

Address the water quality first, though- that's the best medicine you can give the fish.