I was using the Python to change water and clean the gravel. One of the black moors (belly already turning reddish) got in the tube, and by the time I shut the water off, its head had jammed in the top hole and both his eyes got sucked out. The fish is still alive but without any eyes, and some more damage to the head. I put Melafix and Petafix in the water to prevent infection, but even if infection doesn't kill it, I can't imagine how it would manage to find any of the food, especially since I use both sinking and floating foods at different times (I tend to vary food a lot). I don't know if I should just kill it now (or what the most painless way to do that is).

I hope a helper or Mod will come along and advise you. Poor you, what a shock and your poor little moor . There are plenty of people here who keep one eyed fish, the fish do fine- but losing 2 eyes is a little different.

You would probably have to keep him alone and feed him in exactly the same place till he got used to that and his way round the tank. It is possible...

Is he swimming normally now?

It is always a difficult decision to euthanase or not and a hard one to advise on.

I am very sorry this happened! Hope he pulls through!

If he still has good nostrils then he should find food ok, they have a good sense of smell

I hope his head is ok

I wouldn't euthanize him.

I would keep the water pristine and keep an eye on the wounds. They will start to turn whitish around the edges. This is normal and a sign of healing.

A fish can do very well sightless. They use their sense of smell to find food.

How do the wounds look now?

Yes, I hear that blind fish can survive quite well. I had a terrible accident with a hose also and one of my goldies is blind in one eye because of it. I hope you and your fish pull through. <3

I'm not trying to rock the boat here but I would consider putting him down painlessly. I just had a similar thing happen to me where a fish lost one eye (though it's still partially in the socket... I wonder now if it just might be functional) I had to think long and hard about putting him down. I have decided against it for the time being. Taking that kind of damage your little Moor did would be very hard to recover from , and I'd think very painful. Totally a personal decision of course. I am so sorry about your accident- it's terrible when this sort of thing happens

I've had fish lose eyes twice and they lived normal lives (I still have one of them) but they both had a single eye left. I once had a sick fish lose both eyes to a pleco and I promptly euthanized him. It's a tough decision. I hope your little guy proves us all wrong and shows that it is possible for him to live a happy healthy life

Please keep us updated on this, no matter what happens.

Chrissy

It's swimming around fine and upright as fins and tail are undamaged, but bumping into things... I cannot tell if the nostrils are damaged. There is no visible nostril damage, but there could have been hemorrhaging inside due to the low pressure. Man, the holes in its head are so big, moor eyeballs are huge... A couple strings of tissue still hanging out of the sockets, but other than that it was a relatively clean separation. I don't know if it will be able to smell the food as the circulation is quite strong, and I'm not sure how the ecosystem will take it if I throttle the powerhead. Right now, when I drop more food in the other fish go pecking it off the bottom, whereas it keeps swimming randomly.

If I decide to euthanise it, what's the best way?

I gotta say, Pythons really should have a guard in place to prevent this from happening (and also plants like to clog the hole all the time).

I already have a one-eyed fish, though in that case it had scratched its eye and later a dojo loach sucked it out of its socket. That one is doing OK, though low in weight due to, I'm guessing, being outcompeted by the other fish for food.

I hope that you do not have to euthanize the poor little guy! If he heals up then I am sure that he could survive a life of no vision! At the LFS in one of our malls there is a 7 in moor with both eyesballs missing. He does have one of the, not sure what you call it, telescope eye sockets left but with no eye inside. He is not for sale but kind of lives at the store. The owner said he was about 9 yrs old. He also said he has been like that for about 6 yrs.

It would be a hard choice for me to make if there was a hint of survival for this fish! I hope with pristine water and good care, he shows you he can be a fighter!

Wow! That's amazing, and encouraging. Maybe the injured moor could be seperated for a while, or during feeding time you could figure out a way to feed him away from the other fish. Even if you tried to hold some food in front of his snout in your hand?

As for euthanizing.... ...I've heard that clove oil is the best way to go. I've had to do it twice and since I had no clove oil, I placed the fish in plastic containers and cooled them slowly, eventually putting them in the freezer. i'm really not sure about that method though, I've heard some people think it's painful At the time it was all I could do.

There is a pinned thread about putting fish down when you must:

http://www.kokosgoldfish.invisionzone.com/...80&hl=clove+oil

There's the link

Poor little guy I wouldn't euthanise him - if all goes well and no bacteria sets in, he should live a long and happy life with you

Please let us know how he gets on

How is he doing today?

As others have mentioned, other than appearance and being more clumsy, he will do just fine once he adjusts.

I would certainly give him a chance.

I was thinking about your fish all night! How is he today??? I hope hes improving! I do not know why he has stayed on my mind so much, but I hope for the best!

Let us know how he is and how the eye areas look!

Guys thank you for your concern.

It seems to have recovered from the shock, and obstacle avoidance is not too bad. Unfortunately, it's not able to find the food at all. Maybe it's that the dry food doesn't have much scent, or maybe the suction destroyed its olfactory system, and in the latter case, I don't know if it's something it can recover from, and thus whether it would be worth it to try manual feeding for a while.

In case it's just sight that has been eliminated, I may try feeding at night instead to level the playing field. However, in that case the loaches will have an advantage over the goldfish.

How is the little guy doing today? I hope still on the road to recovery!

I see your main concern is for the fish being able to find food and getting it before the other fish do! If that is so, perhaps you could set up a tank just for him, rather it be a regular tank or a rubber maid container. This way he would surely get the food before any one else did.

I guess because I keep so many goldfish at one time, I always seem to have one or two with a "disability". I have a tank for these guys. Right now I have a pearlscale in there that doesn't seem to be able to right himself. He kind of lives on his side. He is a little food challenged, so I have put a bubble eye in for a companion. He isn't too fast finding food, either.

Perhaps you could do something like that for the little moor.

How is the fish doing today?

Just tossing around ideas, but maybe if you aren't up to setting up another tank, somebody else on the forum might be able to take the moor. Just generally, where are you located?

I'm in Vancouver, BC, Canada. I wouldn't mind having someone adopt it if they are better equipped to handle a fish in a similar situation. I certainly wouldn't be able to set up another tank as my life is very busy and about to get more so...

Oh, I wish I was not so far away, I would take him in a heartbeat! Seems to be my mission right now, rescuing the sick and injured!

I hope someone is close enough to you that might be interested in taking him off your hands!

I have a tank with two,one eyed Lionheads and a Moor.I actually think the one Lionhead maybe totally blind in the eye he does have left .Anyway,it took a little practice,but as soon as they hear the tank open,they all run to the right corner where I feed them from all the time. Don't worry if it takes a bit for him to learn that,as when it comes down to it Goldfish like to scavange at the bottom,so the food that they miss,they do eventually find asa they go about digging through the gravel. .

Well, seems to be actively seeking out food now, though when I switch back to floating instead of sinking food, it will take it time to readjust. It did take a poop so it's finding at least some food.

I had immediately added Melafix and Petafix to the tank after the accident, and the one eyed oranda I had in there with a partial flip-over (it was vertical when idle but had good buoyancy control) now is floating upside down at the top with a distended and soft belly, so I'm worried that the anti-bacterial may have disrupted its gastric fauna causing the worsening. Tried feeding pieces of frozen peas as recommended elsewhere for clearing pneumatic duct obstructions, but it spits them out... On the other hand, it could be a swim bladder issue rather than gastric gas buildup, as there was partial flip-over before this. In that case I could try deflating with a hypodermic needle assuming I could locate the bladder. As a last resort I'll try to find a vet to implant an inert weight as I've read some do to upright the fish.

Can you hand-feed it? When my first goldfish started dying, I had limited success in hand-feeding him as he was doing alot of bottom-sitting. However, in the long run he died anyway but hand-feeding a sick/injured fish will allow them to get enough food if they are unable to otherwise.

I hope this is useful info. Good luck!

Edit: P.S.-before you try feeding with peas, you should let the fish stop eating for awhile. (2-3 days I think.)

How are things going?

The eyeless moor seems allright for now. Unfortunately, the one-eyed oranda with the flip-over suddenly got much worse, and I noticed it breathing in only once every ten-twenty seconds, and barely responding to prodding. The only thing I had around at the moment was benzamide HCl so I put it in a container with some tank water and slowly added the anesthetic until it became motionless. I intend to do a dissection to see if it was a swim bladder or gastric issue.

Oh I am sorry to hear it came to that.
Let us know what you find.

The intestines were clogged and had pockets of gas. The way these ornamental fish are bred with unusual shapes makes for weird arrangements of their guts... This fish has been slowly worsening since the time I got it as a baby, and I'm guessing it would have reached this point regardless of treatment.

I considered feeding the body to the cat, which seemed better than throwing it in the trash. But since I used a chemical to kill it, that wasn't an option. On the other hand, it could have had parasites so I guess it wasn't a good idea in the first place.

OMG! I am so glad you did not do that! Thats horrible!

Well, my thought was that in a way a part of it would continue to live on in the body of the cat. Though on the other hand, the cat is 20 years old so that may not be a long time...

Sorry to hear about the other fish But glad to hear the Moor is doing alright.
That autopsy was very brave of you, I wouldn't be able to bring myself to do that to any of my fish. But, then again, I have rasbora's and they are considerably smaller.

As to feeding the fish to the cat, if it was in the wild, a predator would've gotten it anyways *shrugs* I considered it once, but my cat turned her nose up at fresh caught perch, so I just toss them outside for the fire ants, or toss them in the garbage. After they're dead, of course. I wouldn't do that to one I thought was still alive.