• Looking to buy a cephalopod? Check out Tomh's Cephs Forum, and this post in particular shares important info about our policies as it relates to responsible ceph-keeping.

Sepia officinalis w/ cloudy eyes

Not familiar with a specific illness that causes eyes to cloud, but perhaps you should test your water. Maybe this is what occurs with excess ammonia or nitrates.
 
Eye problems

Without knowing all of the details there are a few possibilities. If the cuttlefish are getting old then the cloudiness of the eye is quite common and irreversible, kinda of like senescence in octopods. I have also observed eye problems in cuttlefish tanks with high levels of nitrate. Now either of these two possibilities can lead to bacterial infection and the contamination of other cuttlefish but the other cuttlefish in the tank must have been maintaining internal problems that manifested itself once the first cuttlefish showed couldiness in the eyes.
The move could have also placed additional stress that allowed the infection to expand to vision. The eyes may have been the first observed symptom of a problem but I believe that an internal infection must have been going on. With vision being such an important part of the cuttlefish livelihood, the immune system would protect that part of the body before other parts. That is just a theory that I have but the same sort of thing can be seen in many other animals.

Greg
 
Interesting first post. :welcome: gjbarord. There will be some people who won't read this thread, so why don't you go to the introduce yourself thread and tell us a bit about yourself? Sounds like you have some experience.
 
sorseress;94678 said:
Interesting first post. :welcome: gjbarord. There will be some people who won't read this thread, so why don't you go to the introduce yourself thread and tell us a bit about yourself? Sounds like you have some experience.

:welcome: indeed. My creepy google-stalker skills actually show that
he's marinebio_guy's coauthor on the Nautilus article in the new TFH (which I still haven't found a copy of, grrr.)

As an interesting side-note, I'd like to point out gjbarord's first post as one that exhibits very good academic writing skills. I had no doubt that this was someone who was experienced, knowledgeable, and informed from just this one post.
 
Back to the question at hand. Provided it is not from aging and it is bacterial, how would one go about treating it? Could a general anti-biotic simply be applied to food, or would it be more effective to simply treat the water as a whole? I would imagine the former would probably be more effective, but I have little experience when it comes to medicating cuttlefish.
 
First of all, the problem would seem to be bacterial due to aging. Aging itself does not cause cloudy eyes, etc. The two go hand in hand... But I digress. The probability of bacterial agents focusing only on the ocular region in cuttlefish is low but if this is the case I would recommend a bath rather than oral medication. The main obstacle during bath treatments is providing an appropriate quarantine tank. More often than not the cuttlefish will jet into the side of the quarantine tank once released. This appears to be a reaction to the antibiotic in use. Very soon, though, the cuttlefish will calm down and remain still for the duration. Baths are performed for about one hour, depending on the dosage.

What type of antibiotic are you thinking of using?

Greg
 
I would most likely use Baytril, however im not sure on the dosage I would use for a bath with Baytril.

Is there a better choice? I have used Baytril with several other animals with good results, however they were almost exclusively fish so I am not sure how the cuttle would react to it.
 
Sato;96496 said:
I would most likely use Baytril, however im not sure on the dosage I would use for a bath with Baytril.

Is there a better choice? I have used Baytril with several other animals with good results, however they were almost exclusively fish so I am not sure how the cuttle would react to it.

Boyle's book (1991, so may be outdated) specifically mentions in the section on skin ulcers "Treatment with several anti-bacterial agents showed that periodic dipping in solutions of Nifurpirinol (Furnace(R)) at a range of concentrations was effective in reducing mortality and complete healing was achieved in some animals." He goes on to mention Hanlon et al 1984 and Forsythe et al 1987 as useful references for anti-bacterial treatments.
 
Gregory Lewbart published Invertebrate Medicine, 2006. The section on cephalopods, while very short, lists several possible treatments. Baytril, or enrofloxacin, can be administered intra-venous, orally, or in a bath. The oral dosages are 10 mg/ kg and the bath dosage is 2.5 mg/ L for 5 hours. Be cautious with the dosage as these dosages, as of 2006, are still only empirical values. Keep a close watch on the ventilation rate and overall behavior and if anything seems abnormal, discontinue the treatment immediately.

I would not say that this book is necessary for cephalopod keepers because out of the 350 pages, only 20 are devoted to cephalopods. But it has good information in those 20 pages. It is also very indicative of what we still don't know about cephalopod disease and treatment. It also has information on other invertebrates that can be used with cephalopods. If you have an extra $150 bucks then get the book.

Good Luck

Greg
 
I thank you all very much. I deal more in the way of Anthazoans and such and am not all that familiar with cephalopods, however I do find them to be some of the most fascinating animals I have every worked with.

Mark
 

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