Strange lump on Betta

[JWiff]

Noticed today that my betta has a strange lump near the pectoral and ventral fins. He seems a bit pale and slightly more docile than usual but not excessively.

He shares a tank with 2 electric blue rams, 7 neon tetras, a few shrimp and a couple of snails. It's a 55L tank, water parameters are fine, filter is fine, all tank mates are happy.

Any ideas or help for the little guy?

 

[Essjay]

Could you take a photo of the betta, please. It is much easier to make suggestions if we can see what the lump looks like

I know that fish are not the easiest of things to photograph but any you can manage, from different angles, would help enormously.

 

[Baker]

My guess based purely off what you're saying and not seeing it, is that it's a bacterial infection. It's usually a sign of high ammonia and is a sign of not enough water changes. Symptoms include clamped fins, faded color, loss of appetite, sometimes becoming less active or staying near the bottom of the tank. If untreated fish usually develop sores on body, usually a reddish color. It can be contagious so I would quarantine, luckily it's a betta so you could put it in a small container similar to he ones they're sold in. Treatment would be any kind of antibacterial medication. You can also use a q-tip and dip it in hydrogen peroxide and apply that topically a few times a day to help the sore heal.

If it's more of a cottony growth on the outside of the fishes body it will likely be fungal, which is similar treatment just using an Antifungal instead.

Another possibility is external parasites, which would be easier to see if you used a magnifying glass

Hope this helps and agreed that we can better help with pics

 

[JWiff]

He's not being particularly helpful but you can see the lump just back from his gills, around the pectoral and ventral fins. All I can guess atm is that he's constipated or something.

 

[JWiff]

Here's a few more, sorry about the exposure and blurryness

 

[Baker]

Hmm I really don think that's a symptom of constipation. It looks more like either bacterial or possibly a tumor, I would try dosing something like general cure and if that doesn't work it may be an untreatable tumor unfortunately but I don't want to give you any bad information so I would say try everything you can to medicate such as the general cure I mentioned or melafix/pimafix, you might also try frequent water changes, aquarium salt, etc.

If it gets to the point that it interferes with his swimming or eating I think the best thing to do would be euthanization. Anyway I'll leave any further advice to others with more experience treating diseases like this. Good luck and sorry your fish is going through this.

 

[Keekers]

That's very strange, I don't think it's constipation either. Maybe it's a tumor. Does it look like something prolapsed? I wouldn't recommend using something like pimafix/melafix or medicating unless you're certain what it is. Sorry I couldn't contribute more. If it does end of being a tumor the best thing you can do is keep him comfortable.

 

[GobyMaster11276]

I think, that like others have said, it might be a tumour. I don't know how to treat that, but my advice is to put him in a hospital tank for a while.