Queen Angel with a nasty case of Pop-Eye

[mk1151]

I have a 220 gallon reef-ready FOWLR tank with a number of inverts and other fish. All water test results are 0 except Nitrates which are around 1ppm.

The Queen has been in the tank for a few months - one of the oldest fish in there.

I was told to use Melafix - I shut off the skimmer and UV system and dosed the tank for 2 weeks - one dose each week as directed. The fish seemed to be a little better, then almost overnight it went from cloudy-eye to full-on pop eye.

It looks really bad, but the fish is eating voraciously, isn't sluggish at all, and is basically behaving perfectly normal.

I can't get the fish out of the tank because I have a LOT of live rock a quite a tunnel system. I also have a number of other fish that are happy and healthy - including a flagfin Angel that arrived at the same time from the same LFS.

So - I've been told there is basically no treatment for this without removing the fish or killing all the inverts and live rock (not an option).

Is there an alternative treatment that I'm missing? How do you get a 5" queen angel out of a tank when it's not sluggish or willing to be caught?

Thanks!

[FoMoCo Master Tech]

You can literally try fishing for it with a hook and string. Sounds crazy but it's better than ripping your rock apart.

[leebca]

Sorry that you may have been misled or given mis-advice. Have you been reading any of the stickies here in the forum? A couple of them could be helpful. Read these two:

Melafix and Pimafix - How They Work and Don't Work
and
Popeye -- NOT the Sailor

If you still wish to remove the fish and treat (with an antibiotic as indicated in the second post linked above), then this thread may give you some ideas about catching the fish:
Goin' Fishin' -- Catching Your Marine Fish

Look over the information and if you have additional questions, please don't hesitate to ask. But you want to get the best information you can into you before you take any further action.