Questionable Goldfish Death

[PlatyLady]

I just came home from thanksgiving break, and my sister, who takes care of some of my fish in my absence, pointed out that my goldfish 'didn't look too good.' I looked in and I thought that the poor guy had tail rot. I got up to get some meds for the tank, when my sister starts screaming from the other room. I go see what happened, and she starts screaming "his eyeball just fell out!", which, to my surprise, it did. He showed no signs of popeye or anything of the like. We ended up euithanizing him last night, as it seemed cruel to let him go on with almost no fins and a bloody orifice where his eye once was, and his tankmates were sort of eating him alive. Anyone know what happened to him?

[Zoe]

Can you give us some info about tank size, water parameters, tank mates?

[PlatyLady]

can't give perameters-none of my testing stuff is at my parents' house. He was in a ten gallon (I know, small for goldfish, but was really small, about an inch, maybe an inch and a half), and he was living with a pair of danios, though that set up was supposed to be temporary.

[Zoe]

All I can think of would be poor quality and stunting. I don't know how to explain the eye falling out, though. Maybe an infection in the back of the eye?

[PlatyLady]

The poor water quality would definately explain the finrot, but, like you, I am baffled as to the loss of the eye. I think the moral to this story is that my sister is not, repeat not, allowed to have any more fish, especially if they're mine...

[MDsaints]

that happened to my fish before to... i have no clue why though too... but ill do some research and check it out

[igauresh]

I have not seen a goldfish loose it's eyes before but it would be a gruelling sight for me I guess. But can somebody tell me what are the reasons that kind of thing would happen? Is it some kind of disease? and would the ones who tried to eat the sick goldfish suffer the same disease?

[PlatyLady]

It was really gross. Even though I didn't watch the actual eye fall out, seeing the eye on the bottom of the tank and looking at the slightly bloody socket (it was actually like a shiny silver inside the socket, but bloody nonetheless) was gut-wrenching. The best I can figure is that maybe he had some sort of infection in the back of the eye or an infection of the muscles that keep the eyeball in the head, but I really have no idea what it was. As for the tank mates, noone seems to be suffering from any consequences of munching on the sick fish. In fact, noone even seems to show any signs of the finrot that the goldie had.