cloudy eye on sleeper goby

[canuckreef]

well after about 2 years of everything going more or less ok...
i came down to see my golden head sleeper goby has a cloudy eye... i noticed a few days ago that he was not around..(but eventually he showed up..) but not himself.. he was not swimming as much.. but i thought well he was burrowing in the sand...which is what he did when i first got him..then he was just sifting the sand..but now is burrowed again...

only one eye is cloudy..and i am wondering if maybe he injured it and got an infection...
since he is all over the rocks and sand..

but here is the status now...
he comes out when i feed the tank.. and seems to be active..otherwise he is not seen..
he seems in good shape..and healthy....
and to catch him is almost going to be impossible so i cant treat him in a Q tank...

my water is RO and my parameters are good... more or less

someone told me to do a few water changes in a short period of time ... may help to get any phosphates or nitrates down.. if they
exist...

is there anyway to treat the tank itself... i have a 55 gallon reef
and i was told that if i use any antibiotics they will knock out my
biological system....live rock...

so i am open to hear what you have to say...and help...
i hope i can save this guy...

thanks..

[Chuck S]

There is really nothing you can dose in the tank. You can dose garlic which is good for ick. This also has a nice effect of making increasing appetite. You can do this to keep him eating well and maybe he will heal himself if indeed it is only an injury. Sounds more like an infection and these are hard to treat without quarantining the fish.

[cheletnjared]

I would try to feed from a fish trap to get him. I agree that no dosing should be done - I made this mistake when new to the hobby on advice from a LFS. They told me to dose and that I should have no adverse effects towards any of the soft corals that I had in at the time. Needless to say, no corals survived, and my fish ended up dying a few days later as well.

Quarntine tanks are the way to go! Do a search on fish traps as there are some good discussion on them. I managed to catch my mandarin gobie with one.

Good luck! - Jared.