Chipped eye

[DR.V]

This is one of the tips on how to select good discus.

Chipped eyes should be avoided. Does anyone know why ??

Or is it just look ugly ?

Thanks

[Merrilyn]

As far as I know, it's simply classed as an eye deformity, but I'm not sure if it affects the vision or not. It is certainly not attractive, and if you had a choice, you would want to choose a fish with nice round eyes.

[DR.V]

Thanks Merrilyn , Im just curious

[Trebs]

I have a turk pair with no eye defects. One of their batches of fry had a large number of 'chipped eyes' about 10-15%. This particular batch were subject to a nitrite spike when they were very young, between 4-6 weeks old. They were also kept in very acidic conditions. I have raised subsequent batchs of fry from this pair since improving my grow out system (no ammo/nitrites and ph of 6.5 7) and did not get a single notched eye in the next 3 spawns.

Not a classically controlled experiment but it looks like this defect could be due to environmental conditions. Notch eyes may indicate a fish has been raised in poor conditions which would be a reason to avoid it.

Not sure if it effects vision or not.

[Andrew Soh]

Helllo everyone,
My opinion is that the chip on the hard casing of the iris is caused by external factor like bacteria infection when they were very young...usually during the second phase of fetus development(before free swim). It could be other parasites or micro-organisms attacking and damaging the casing but my view is more to the bacteria, I may be wrong. As it is a hard casing repair work to normal is quite impossible and the immune is unable to accomplish thus leaving a post infection feature.

I had this problem many years ago with many having 1 or 2 or sometimes 4 chips in one eye.......some two. After becoming a major problem to my production, I treated all pre-spawning pairs with antibiotics to certain tanks and chemicals (but did not use PP, only formalin) against protozoan in other tanks. Finally, when the fry grow up to 7 cm, there was not a single discus with this chip in tanks treated with antibiotics. That is my observation and experiment.

THis is not a genetic trait and is no harm using them as brooders if they are of high standard in other pheno-expression.


Warmest regards,
Andrew :angel