How do you fix and prevent drooping eyes in surface dwelling fish?
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The condition in the fish pictured below (left) is very common for top dwelling fish and especially in arowanas. These guys are surface dwellers, and they are built to search the surface for food such as fallen insects, fish and can even leap out of the water into the air to catch birds in flight!
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In most aquaria, there is not really much for them to look at up top. Actually, more things happen at the bottom and their eyes get lazy and droop.
So, how can you prevent this from happening? Some keep these fish in below ground tanks in purpose-built fish rooms with a lot of air space. Some advocate placing ping pong balls to float in the tank, giving them something to look at that’s near the surface. So those are some ways for prevention.
But what to do if they already have this condition? Plastic surgery for fish? There is a method whereby the fish is placed under surgical anaesthesia and the dorsal aspect of the globe is resected, scarified and then sutured in place … in other words, the fish is given an eye lift!
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