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When at my local MA today to buy another 3 Albino Bronze Corys I stumbled accross some truly beautiful Loxonzonus and Agassizii. After much soul searching I decided to take home a small group of Agassizii. After a few hours of darkness I turned the light on and watched my new fish. The albinos are doing their thing, zooming around exploring and playing tag with the Tiger barbs and the Agassizii are hiding in the back somewhere. When the biggest of the Agassizii came out to mooch I noticed he only has one eye. There doesn't seem to be any sign of infection or damage and it looks perhaps as if he never developed that eye properly in the first place. The eye socket is sunken and there is a small round nub in the centre which looks like it's trying to move so I wonder if that is an unformed eye?

So...do I return for a replacement or keep him? It is too late to phone the shop now so thought I'd ask you guys what you think.

Keep him! Sounds like he's otherwise healthy.

I agree, shouldn't be a problem. I've got a one-eyed Dwarf Giraffe Cat that has no problems (it had two eyes when I got it, but I think it got into a fight with another fish - either it's companion or a bristlenose)...

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Mats

He certainly seems to be. The weird thing is that the guy at the shop introduced me to one-eye, their resident peppered cory today to show me a fully grown Cory. Then I get home to find I have my very own one-eye!

Thanks mats. Good to know.

Cory should be fine. Some time ago I was given a free black ghost knife and in he went into my 90 gallon with lots of driftwood and cories and plecos. And despite the feeding of live worms and frozen...I noticed after the BGK had been around for some weeks, my cories were losing eyes. Some lost both. I took the cursed knife to an lfs and no more eyeballs went missing. And the cories are fine.

I have a Cory sterbai that has no eyes at all and he (it is a male)is now around 6 years old.

Ian

Corydoras usually does fine with only one eye, since they are evolved to manage murky waters with not much sight in the wild. I've had a couple of one-eyed Corydoras during my time, and they never showed any signs of ill comfort or problems. Healthy and fine, just as able to find food like all the others. Corydoras use their barbels much more than their eyesight when searching for food or find their way about in the tank, so I would be more concerned if a Cory missed his barbels than an eye.

Thanks everyone. He seems fine. He's the biggest of the three and the bravest so I'm not worried.

Well...I've been a very naughty girl! I've bought another 6 Agassisii and was given a 7th to make up for my one-eyed friend making a lovely group of 10! I have the room in my tank currently as everybody is still young and am planning on buying a new 200l tank at the end of the week! Hurrah!

Hi,are you wanting to breed your corys? Cos if so the one eyed fish might not be the best to allow to breed just incase its a genetic problem.

Hi Mink. No I'm not planning on breeding but thanks for flagging that up. I have a small group of Habrosus who I'm hoping to breed but not the Agassisii.

It is fairly unlikely that it's a genetic problem - that would almost certainly affect BOTH eyes. By far more likely that it's been kept with some form of loach or other sharp/aggressive fish that poked/bit the eye out.

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Mats