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Roxy's eye

Joined
Jan 31, 2003
Messages
251
I just noticed that my bimac's right eye is looking wierd. It seems smaller like the muscle is contracted around it and the pupil is smaller and skinnier. She also seems to be facing her left side towards me so I wonder if she went blind in the right? I went out of town for Christmas for a week and now when I get back it is like that. I left the light out while I was gone and I took some pics of her with a flash before I left but most of the pics were of her left side. She ate well tonight and seems healthy and playful enough. The eyes aren't milky so I don't think it's senesence. I've had her for 9 months and I'm sure she's at least a year old but still going strong.
 
It does sound like she's damaged that eye. We had one that had damaged an eye and what you describe sounds similar. I doubt your flash would've been the problem though, this is a mechanical injury, what else is in your tank? Do you feed live crabs? maybe one got revenge (that's what happened with ours). Anything sharp in the tank?

hope this helps a little

J
 
Since it's winter, I'm only able to get ahold of non-threatening dead shrimp from the seafood market.( I feel so dumb asking the man for 6 pieces of shrimp :oops: ) Her only other tankmates are seastars so she must of jetted into a rock or something. I'll just have to keep an eye on her (no pun intended) Thanks, John
 
Jean, it seems that all three of our older bimacs have some sort of eye problem, and each of them different. You already know about Ink's blindless.

Ollie seems to have lost a lot of her sight, and opens up her eyes so they are big and round now. She can see some motion, can tell when I turn the light on and off, but doesn't see well close up at all. Is this old age or an eye problem of some sort? I worry that she stared up into the fluorescent light too long (not a bright one, but a light nonetheless) I guess there is no medicine for such conditions.

Would like to hear what you have to say about all our bimacs' eyes -

Nancy
 
Just looked at Ink's eyes again and the right eye is totally white and almost closed, while the left you can see the black pupil and is larger looking. I still believe she does not see anything and is now totally intune to vibrations. I can walk up to the tank and she flinches from the vibration of my steps and I am not walking heavily.

I thought maybe my water quality may have been contributing to her condition, but all parameters are good. And hearing Roxy's condition, makes me think maybe her age rather than injury may have something to do with the eye condition. Ink's started with the white also.

I too am interested to hear more from Jean! :smile:

Carol
 
Nancy said:
Jean, it seems that all three of our older bimacs have some sort of eye problem, and each of them different. You already know about Ink's blindless.

Ollie seems to have lost a lot of her sight, and opens up her eyes so they are big and round now. She can see some motion, can tell when I turn the light on and off, but doesn't see well close up at all. Is this old age or an eye problem of some sort? I worry that she stared up into the fluorescent light too long (not a bright one, but a light nonetheless) I guess there is no medicine for such conditions.

Would like to hear what you have to say about all our bimacs' eyes -

Nancy

Blindness is not uncommon in older octopus, I think it's just old age. As a general rule we don't keep ours til that stage, but in the few that we have they've all developed a milky appearance to the eye and very poor to non extistant sight. T'is just one of those things. :frown:

Sideways octi tho' sounds different, this sounds like an injury not senesence.

my :twocents:

J
 
Roxy's eye looked the same this morning. Tonight it looked about 50% better and then 5 minutes later it was smaller again. Almost like she bruised it and it's trying to get better. But in general it just seems shrunken, not milky at all. I'd take a pic of her eye but she will only face me with her good eye. I guess maybe our octos are living longer than the ones kept in the past and were starting to see more old age ailments.
John
 
And Ollie's eyes don't look the least bit milky - so maybe she's just losing her sight because of old age, too. I think you may be right, John!

It seems we're in uncharted territory here, so it's important that we all observe and report so that we're better informed for the next generation of bimacs.

Nancy
 
Glad to hear that Roxy's eye is improving. Still, the number of eye problems is distressing and is something I'd like to investigate more.

Nancy
 
I think it's probably caused when roxy jetted around and hit her eye. Maybe its like when you poke your eye and its hard to open, It does get ok eventually but maybe it takes longer in octos since their eyes look delicate. Well, just my thoughts. :twocents: Just a pretty dumb hypothesis that came to my mind at the moment so don't believe it.
 

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