White looking growth on gold fish's head

[Gunnja]

Have a nice big gold fish that has developed a white growth on its head, another has a white bump.
Haven't seen this before and I couldn't find anything similar when googling it.

Any ideas?

Thanks in advance.

 

[Matt68005]

Has he been wounded lately?
This type of "mould" growth can also be signs that hes in mating season....
Late April is mating season for most goldfish and koi

 

[Gunnja]

Thanks for your response!

That's interesting, thought the 'cheek spots' were the only sign of that.

Hasn't been wounded to my knowledge, and is the biggest fish in the tank.

Have noticed the water being cloudy and some fin rot on my other fish, so will treat them and then replace my filter (pretty old now).

One other thing I have seen is that the fish now almost exclusively stay at the top of the tank as if there were food up there or something.. They used to swim all round and suck at the stones on the bottom etc. worried this might also be affecting my water quality..

 

[Matt68005]

Well, not much you can do except keep doing water changes religiously until it gets clean water. If it is fungus growth, the best thing to do is to remove him and put him in a ten gallon with airstone and use something like Furan-2 or Methylene blue for 5-7 days until it clears up, and feed very sparingly. I like to use flake food for goldies rather than pellet, because goldfish are greedy eaters but have a small stomach so the pellets expand in their stomach and very often they get bloated or swim bladder infections. Any more questions for me ask away. Goldfish are hardy, especially when their as big as HE is....im sure he'll be ok. The cheek spots are how you tell male from female, the mould looking stuff on their head or pectoral fins is usually a sign hes ready to mate. Has he been chasing other goldies?