cross-eyed youngsters

[Bass]

Hello Youngsters,

I have a Discus with a sight impediment. He's from an A grade batch, so is healthy otherwise, but is obviously a basket case from excessive in-breeding.

He will fight with the best of them at feeding time, but can't strike the food properly, and misses out on eating most feeding times.

Already he is showing signs of runting. I'm worried that he will eventually give up trying.

What's the best approach to this problem?

[April]

hi bass. where you been?
try feeding him up above...some say its when they try to hit it on the bottom they miss. but can get it at the top?

[BlueTurquoise]

If you are planning to breed this fish then get rid of him. If he is your pet, then don't give up. I have a beautiful 4 1/2 inch fish that has this condition, no runting at all. If he is a runt it won't be becuase of this factor, although of course it depends on the severity of the problem.

The best thing that I find is to feed large chunks of food like a large chunk of beefheart or blackworms in a feeder cone. What happens then is that he strikes underneath the food that he wants but since it is such as large chunk, he gets a mouthful.

Just keep an eye on his stomach, it should be fat after feeding time, that's a good way to tell if he is getting enough.

The other thing is black worms, I find that since they don't foul up the water I can afford not to suck it out too quickly giving him ample time to forage at the bottom of the tank.

HTH. Good luck with him, it's a sad thing to see but you can get around it with good TLC
Chong

Hello,
You would be supprised about all the defects in discus! With Most being caused by Envirnoment more then inbreding.
HTH
Cary Gld!

[Dennis_Hardenburge]

Cary
I would agree with you a lot of problems are caused by envirement, or miss use of meds, but I don't think eye sight is one of them, I think this is caused by to much inbreeding.
Dennis

[slicksta]

........ this fish wouldn't be from Tennessee and his name Billy-Joe-Bob???

[BlueTurquoise]

Really?? Environmental!!! wow ok... I will have to think about what has happened since I got him... It probably was me :

Cary does this mean he will still breed true, uncrosseyed fry, if it was in fact environmental?

Chong

[Jameson]

I have a blue diamond now 4inches was under two when purchased that had this problem. when he put on another inch of vitamin enriched flakes and onf1 frozen his missing food and eyesight problem cured itself. he now strikes at fine partcles of flakes with the same accuracy as all the other fish. he used to strike about 1/4 inch below things, then strke quickly four more times before quitting, then the food would get sucked into his mouth by accident. this happened over about a month and then it slowly stopped, and he was normal.

jc

[Bass]

flakes? Just the normal gold fish ones which float on the surface? (I've tried those sera cichlid bits which float, but he doesn't bother).

For the old post...

Cary does make a good point. It could be possible that the defect is a side effect of past disease in the water. Or even bad conditions such as a heavy chem. imbalance. He spent about two weeks off his food when I first got him. But I guessed it was just acclimatisation.

I’ve heard of it before in humans, but there’s no research I know of in fish. Unfortunately, we all just point to the “unofficial” texts from the net, which blame in-breeding. It’d be nice if someone could put a bit of insight in for the Beginners area… Brew?, I know you’re still there (Or just post a link if it’s old news).

Anyway, he used to strike at food off the bottom. I assumed that everything was ok. Recently I noticed that he wasn’t actually able to pick it up. A few weeks later he stopped trying all together, and will only try to strike from the top ½ of the tank now.
Still.. It doesn’t matter if the food is the size of his head, he’ll still miss.

Would moving him into his own tank to feed-up be a dumb idea?