bubblishs growths on tetras tail......

[imrj99]

am new here but have had aquarium with tropical fish for over a year....I just noticed one of my neon tetras has this growth on his tail, looks like bubbles, he is not as active as used to be and appears to be struggling staying on the surface...I dont know what the dark spots are, but could it be his anus is blocked?
Ive done some reading around and it could be lymphocystis or dermocystidium? its a 30g tank with about another 10 fish in it, all is well, water quality is spot on and all other fish are ok. Ive had this one for like 8 months and no issues before....
looking for any ideas or things to do or look for? I will put him in a separate small tank now by himself.

 

[CassCats]

In my experience, it looks more like lymphocistus but neither of those diseases have any treatment or cure. They don't usually kill the fish unless it manifests in internal organs or impacts the fish's ability to eat.

It also could be a tumor. Skirt tetras, especially the white ones (which are the ones used for glofish) are very prone to these as well. But, also nothing you can do about it either.

 

[imrj99]

he died overnight in the hospital tank....i used same water from the main tank. I think it might have been blocking his anus and that would have caused internal issues. Dang it, pretty tetra too, should i be concerned about it spreading to other fish?

 

[CassCats]

he died overnight in the hospital tank....i used same water from the main tank. I think it might have been blocking his anus and that would have caused internal issues. Dang it, pretty tetra too, should i be concerned about it spreading to other fish?

It's possible to spread, if lympho or dermo. But it would be extremely slow spread if anything. When I had lympho with some skirts, it didn't spread to others at all, one fish kept a couple small growths on his fins and that was it. He's still alive too, he's 7 years old and none of the others have had symptoms.

I also have a red eye tetra with dermo, it's ugly as heck, but dermo is often host species specific and very slow to spread even among the same species. Been almost a year and she's still the only fish with it.

Odds are it will not do much at all and you can rest easy about it.


The location of the lump on your fish isn't at the anus of the fish, that's actually located just behind the 2 pelvic fins.

That said, it also could have been a tumor, and this fish could have already been compromised health wise and never know if internal organs are affected. I'm sorry you lost her all the same