Big bad wolf

[DMD123]

Tag Deadeye , jjohnwm , Asking your opinions as wolf owners.

So my wolf has been dealing with what my buddy in the medical field called 'traumatic cataract'. Essentially physical eye damage in simplest terms. I removed a large branchy type Mopani and replace it with a much smoother piece as seen in my water change pic.

So at this point the only other thing I can see that might be an issue is his ZooMed plastic log. He will dart in and out of there pretty quickly. So I wonder if he is scratching his eyes on the decor? So as wolf owners, do you guys provide a 'hide' of any sorts to your fish? Im seriously considering moving it out to see if his eyes get better.

At times he acts as if he is blind to large Massivore pellets dropping. The other day he completely missed some and the tank stunk! This is such an awesome fish but the eye thing just makes for some weirdness on his part.

 

[Deadeye]

Was he ever with any tankmates that could have damaged it? I’m not sure if the eye issue ever goes away - my blood parrot has had it for a long time as I had mentioned. Never seemed to bother him.
My tank has some piled rocks and a large driftwood piece, he will hide under the rocks on occasion, but generally just stays out by the front of the tank until I feed him (and then goes right back to begging).

He misses a lot of pellets unless they pass right by him. I’m not sure it’s a vision thing, just that these guys are stupid.
You can try adding some extra plant cover so he’s less tempted to hide in rocks and risk injuring his eye. Since the above pic was taken I have a lot of hornwort, bacopa, and duckweed at the top.

 

[DMD123]

His only tankmate is the male BN pleco who hides in the same log with him. Ive never seen the pleco try and fight with him. If anything it actively tries to avoid him. I think I will wait till an order of new plastic plants comes in and then I might pull the log and rescape the tank and see if the eyes clear up any more.

 

[Sadrobots]

Looking good! I love these grumpy looking bastards, i had one for awhile but ended up rehoming him as he didn't really fit the aesthetic of that tank.

 

[DMD123]

Some close up shots so you can see his eye issues


Same thing on both sides. You can see it in the lens but really close to the surface.

 

[jjohnwm]

My fish has been known to push larger-than-ideal food items into his mouth by literally jamming himself mouthfirst against a solid surface. It always looked as though he would cause damage to himself, but none seems to have occurred. Nevertheless, I try to use food items that are small enough to be easily swallowed without this activity. His weird mood swings continue to occur; I've gotten accustomed to them. He now seems to enjoy hanging suspended in mid-tank in floating plants, rather than hidden in caves. His tank has several lengths of concrete drain pipe and some driftwood, but again, none of this seems to have caused any damage to eyes or otherwise. The fish is extremely visual-oriented, completely unlike the scent-oriented hunting activity of catfish.

I have googled "traumatic cataract" in humans, and it seems as though it is, like "standard" cataracts, a condition affecting the actual lens within the eye. But, in your pictures, the cloudy area appears to be in front of the iris of the eye, perhaps in or under the cornea, whereas the lens is behind the iris. Did your source examine all these pics, showing the various angles? They just don't look like the lens is the part that is affected. I'm not anywhere close to educated in this area, so I am just trying to interpret what I see in those pics.

 

[DMD123]

I have googled "traumatic cataract" in humans, and it seems as though it is, like "standard" cataracts, a condition affecting the actual lens within the eye. But, in your pictures, the cloudy area appears to be in front of the iris of the eye, perhaps in or under the cornea, whereas the lens is behind the iris. Did your source examine all these pics, showing the various angles? They just don't look like the lens is the part that is affected. I'm not anywhere close to educated in this area, so I am just trying to interpret what I see in those pics.

The current pic are much better than what my buddy had seen previously. He had went by some older much more blurry pics. It really looks like its just under the outer surface but just is not clearing up fully.

 

[Deadeye]

Have you tried any antibiotics? It is most likely mechanical damage but it may clear it up if there is a bacterial element at play.

 

[DMD123]

Have you tried any antibiotics? It is most likely mechanical damage but it may clear it up if there is a bacterial element at play.

I ran a full treatment of Kanaplex early on and no noticeable changes.

 

[DMD123]

Closing this down with the sad news that I just had to euthanize the big guy. He was 12" at his passing and would make the 65B feel kind of small at times due to his size. There were a lot of factors that came into play that made me decide it was time to put him down. The eye cataracts were so bad that he was essentially blind. He got to the point where feeding was next to impossible and he would miss the food pellets entirely and they would sit and rot in the tank. With Hikari massivore as his main food, I dont have to tell you how bad the water stink could get just from one day of uneaten food. He was getting very skinny and would float at the top pretty listless. In nature he would have been picked off by a bird for sure.

Likely another event that contributed to his problems was that his aggressiveness meant he would attack the gravel vac during water changes. As careful as I was, one time he got sucked up into the Vac tube and got stuck! I rushed over to the sink and turned off the python and gently removed him from the tube but he was never quite the same after that.

With that sad note, I will say that he was one of my favorite fish that Ive ever owned. I am in the process of ordering another and starting the process again. Hopefully this time without the eye damage and free of the gravel vac tube incident.