Fish lost eye due to disease but now is well, can I put it back in pond with the other goldfish?

by Denise
(Arkansas)

I had a goldfish that developed some sort of illness and had black spots on it and was losing part of its body on the side.

It started just staying at the bottom of the pond so I brought it in and put it in a 20 gallon aquarium with some General Cure.

It is now well with no black spots and body has filled in but unfortunately it lost one of it's eyes.

Should I keep it inside in the aquarium or would it be ok for him to go back into the pond with the other fish? I worry about him getting enough food in the pond with only one eye but I also worry that the aquarium is lonely and not big enough.

---

Grant's Reply

Hi Denise

Firstly, well done for managing your fish’s illness, which was quite serious.

Very few Goldfish keepers mange to do this.

Your concerns are well founded. A fish with one eye is hardly affected by the loss, but it is the competition for food that is the problem as you have already considered.

A lot depends on the size of the fish. If is a smaller member of the pond, it will struggle to get its share of the food.

If it is one of the bigger fish, I would re-introduce it to the pond and observe if it maintains its body weight.

If it starts to lose condition (body weight), that indicates it isn’t coping with the one eye and it will need to be separated from the others.