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I just put in a 150 gallon aquarium housing Cichilds that have been together for over 1 year. I transfered them from a 55 gallon. I did everything according to the book! Two of the fish now have Popeye. This has never happened before. The water quality is usually excellent but now it has Very high nitrates.

I have added the usual chemicals found in the stores to help, but feel very sad that I can't cure it quickly.

I need help. ASAP.

Popeye is just an ugly deal to happen to any fish. without the right meds it can kill them in days.. Do you stil have your 55 gal tank?? IF you do, best to med them in there...

MelaFix WITH PrimaFix are your best bets here.. TREAT for the 7days, do a 25-30% water change and med again for 5 days..

IF this is done in the 150 gal tank..that is a lot of meds. Another option is EM tablets, OR T.C tablets.. READ THE CARTON AND SEE WHAT THE DOSE IS PER TABLET.. These might mess with the bio, so check and make sure.. MelaFix and primaFix don't...

Water changes are your best bets on getting your nitrates DOWN, Vacuum the gravel really good, clean the filters, NEW MEDIA PADS.. Hopefully the tank is cycled as this will cause a bacteria bloom if it is not... What did you use to cycle the tank??

The filters from the 55? gravel? water from the 55?? Or cycle?

YOU said you are using chems to remove the nitrates.. Hummm..
I guess that will work. but you stil need to find the sorce of the nitrates, extra food in the tank, (TO much food, no vacuuming) the filter BOX NOT being cleaned...Ect ect.. Once you get this cleaned and find the sorce, you should be able to control the nitrates better..

Sounds like the popeye is caused by Gas Bubble Disease, in this case.
One problem with Popeye, it is a symptom, and not a singular disease, so to correctly treat it, you need to determine the correct reason for the popeye.
Gas Bubble disease, is a cause of popeye, and it commonly shows up in new tanks. New tanks are prone to have high levels of disolved nitrogen. To be brief, what happens is similar to a diver getting the bends from surfacing to quickly, however in fish the nitrogen bubbles do not expand in the bloodstream, they acumulate behind the fish's eye sockets, thus causing the popeye.
The high levels of disolve nitrogen, also lead to high levels of nitrates in the tank. In the instance of this, the cure is time, the popeye will go away in about a week. If the popeye dosen't then a course of meds will usually cure it. Popeye is generally not fatal, however in many case's the fish will lose an eye, or be blinded in that eye.
In the event its caused by a bacteria, death can occur, or if the fish loses an eye, watch for the onset of an infection, however in most well kept tanks, the fish should recover with no side effects, other than the possible blinding in the eye.
To rid a tank of excess nitrogen, just vigerously agitate the water, watch the bubbles that appear, and hang in the water. When these bubbles disappear, then the nitrogen has left the tank, repeat the agitation, once you can agitate the water, without these bubbles foruming, and hanging on the glass, filter tubes etc, the tank is safe for fish.

Thanks everyone. There has been major improvments over the last few days.

I tested for Nitrates and they were very high. I put my H. O. T. Magnum filter in there containing ntrate absorbing materials with my allready bad to the bone Eheim 2128 (thermo version) and it has made improvments.

The tank is only two weeks old. The Enheim will not need any additional filters after three weeks when the biological filteration kicks into over drive.

It goes to show that no matter how good we are we can still present danger to our fish. I have been very successful transfering fish from aquarium to new aquariums without the typical wait period. These guys are my babies though and it's my first 150.

These H.O.T Magnum filters rock. The are an extremely versatile water clarifying device. Every aquarium enthusiast should own one.