Foggy Eyes?

We stopped at the local pet supply store today and picked up a few testing kits; ammonia, pH, and nitrite (they had no nitrate testing kits).

The numbers are as follows:

pH: 6.25
Nitrite: 0.25
Ammonia: 8.0+

The ammonia kit goes from 0 to 8, with dark green being the indicator for eight. Thats what color the test tube water is.

We're also going to treat for bacterial disease. Any other reccomendations?
 
Your ammonia is at lethal levels and is almost certainly the cause of the murky eyes in your fish. I had a swordtail with a totally white eye recently but as two fish also had a mild dose of ich i treated them with meds and they all were cured fine.
I would hazard a guess that if you dont do water changes then you also dont vaccum your tank. HIgh levels of ammonia like yours are very harmful to fish. Ammonia levels should read 0 but in your case as suggested above you cannot rectify this straight away with hefty water changes.
When doing your small water changes use a gravel vaccum and start to get some of the fish feaces out of the gravel as this will also help to bring your ammonia levels down.
 
agreed. your ammonia is shockingly high. i worry when ANY registers at all, but yours is off the chart! be prepared, though, that after you take care of ammonia (through frequent water changes) your nitrites will start to climb because the bacteria that convert nitrite to ammonia had to "wait" for the first step (ammonia to nitrite) to establish.

because you have old tank syndrome, though, a large water change is probably out of the question. maybe use Amquel Plus or some other ammonia-detoxifying product until your water changes can get large enough to make a difference? those products cannot REMOVE ammonia, but they just change it to the less harmful ionized form. therefore, it's not a miracle cure that makes water changes unnecessary.

what does anyone suggest for dealing with toxic levels of ammonia while dealing with OTS?
 
Well, we replaced the lightbulb in the lid (the old one was dying, and this new one is REALLY bright), cleaned the front of the tank with windex, and cleared off three of the four insides with that fun magnetic brush thingie.

We administered the first dose of Ich treatment as well, and took psilo's advice and use the gravel vacuum to clean out some of the fish poopy. We'll add a half gallon of treated water tonight and another gallon in the morning to get the level of water back towards the top of the tank. Both bottles of water are sitting right now to balance overnight.

(edit) thanks to everyone for being so understanding and helpful. I had a bad experience before where everyone just told me to get rid of the fish because I was a bad owner.

Also, I noticed something interesting...every fish (both Balas and the Angel) have only one foggy eye, and they're all on the right.
 
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Did you see signs of ich? Its generally not a good idea to treat for random things, its just putting more cr*p into your tank. I assume this was an ich tretment you bought at the LFS? Read this, its long, but worth the read.
http://www.aquariacentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=39759
Stick with the slow water changes, and keep an eye on those parameters...
 
Oh, when you vacuum the gravel, make sure to push the siphon into the gravel, instead of just skimming the top. Youll get lots of poop and crud out that way. And, take out one of the "inserts" from your filter and rinse it in the old tank water. Just do one per wc.
 
I wouldn't add anymore ich stuff either unless you see ich on the fish. It doesn't help with this infection so all you're really doing is adding chemicals to the water which adds to stress the fish. Water changes is all the cloudy eye calls for.
 
ViperGTS19801 said:
Well, we replaced the lightbulb in the lid (the old one was dying, and this new one is REALLY bright), cleaned the front of the tank with windex, and cleared off three of the four insides with that fun magnetic brush thingie.
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Just use a paper towel and water/vinegar when cleaning the outside of the tank. I just use water and some elbow grease. Any ammonia based cleaning products should not be used on any part of an aquarium. Ammonia can seep through the glass and crystalize on acrylic. This can be fatal to your fish.
 
Zen4t5 said:
Just use a paper towel and water/vinegar when cleaning the outside of the tank. I just use water and some elbow grease. Any ammonia based cleaning products should not be used on any part of an aquarium. Ammonia can seep through the glass and crystalize on acrylic. This can be fatal to your fish.
Click to expand...
seep through glass?
 
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