Pearl Gourami with lump on his side

[jeremyblevins]

i just woke up this morning to find a very bright white spot on one of my gourami's side and it appears to be some kind of lump as far as i can tell he's acting fine he's swimming around as usual.
any ideas what it could be?
this is the best picture i could get my fish are very shy.

[jeremyblevins]

Anyone?

[jeremyblevins]

It's gotten bigger today. And didn't eat either.

[JohnPaul]

Does it look like it might be some sort of worm or leech that got under his skin? That's about the only thing I can think of. Really, really hard to tell without a clearer picture, though I understand how it can be almost impossible to get a good pic when you need one.

[HUKIT]

It looks like bloat but without a better picture it's say. Does the lump look like a pine cone? I would quarantine the fish...the only bloat medication that works is Clout. I have used Epsom salt to help with digestion.

If it is Bloat it is preventable which is generally due to stress and improper diet ( frozen blood worms not thawed).

[jeremyblevins]

well i'm cleaning out a quarantine tank now. and i've only feed them tetracolor flakes and tetramin crips. and only had them a month.

[jeremyblevins]

A set up a 10 gallon with a cheap hob filter and filled it up with water. I have 2 questions. I don't have a hood but should it be fine? And the tank had hard water deposits and I couldn't clean them all off should it be harmful to my fish?

[JohnPaul]

Hardwater deposits are fine, at least for something short-term like a QT. As for no hood, well, you will probably be okay though there is always a concern about a fish possibly leaping out. Do you have anything at all you can put over the tank, at least when you aren't in the room watching it--a board of some sort or anything like that?

Regarding bloat, usually if a fish is bloated it is the entire fish that is large and pine coney. If it is a just a small spot, that wouldn't be bloat. I still think it may perhaps be an external parasite that has dug in under the skin of the fish. But that's not much more than a guess at this point.

[jeremyblevins]

i can't really tell if there's something under neither the skin. but there is some vertical black strips that i don't think are part of the fish's coloring. what should i do?

[jeremyblevins]

and the fish does seem to be bloated somewhat he's rather lethargic.

[jeremyblevins]

oh and would a piece of cardboard cut to fit work?

[JohnPaul]

Well, if he's still eating you could try to feed him a specialty flake food laced with a medication for internal parasites. If he's not eating, you could try treating the water of the QT with a medication for external parasites. But again, all of this is just speculation and somewhat haphazard guessing. And if you go this route, you will probably spend 5x more money on medications than you initially spent on the fish, and even after all of that, the odds of survival are probably pretty small. Not trying to be a "downer" but I've been down this road before--spending $40 in medicine to try to save a $5.99 fish and have it end up being ineffective. YMMV, and if you try it, I hope you have success.

But even IF this is indeed some sort of worm in there, and IF you are able to find the right medicine to kill the worm, you are still facing the unhappy situation where your fish is going to have a rather large (but now dead, and soon to be, dead & rotting) worm inside of it; and the fact that there is a rather large area of damaged flesh that the fish may or may not be able to heal from.

Now maybe it's not a worm at all. Could be a tumor. Could be some sort of acute bacterial infection (akin to a human getting a "boil"). Who knows. It's just really hard to say. Now that he's acting more sluggish, maybe that will afford you the opportunity to get a higher-quality picture of the lesion that might help in identifying it.

EDIT: Cardboard should work to cover the tank, yes.

[jeremyblevins]

what about this?
Parasite Clear Tank Buddies, 8 tabs

or this?
Aquarium Salt, 16oz.

and i tried getting a better picture i just cant get one to show good detail

[JohnPaul]

Ya those (the first thing you listed) look like they would do the trick. Salt itself is not going to achieve what you want; assuming your fish survives the initial treatment then a little bit of salt in the water may help prevent secondary infections, but you are not going to fix what's wrong with your gourami with just aquarium salt.

[jeremyblevins]

well most pet stores were already closed but i went to walmart and they had it. so i just dropped in 1 tablet hopefully it'll cure him :/. should i keep feeding him or should i just wait a couple of days?

[jeremyblevins]

Okay so the bump has go e completely flat but it is still a spot on his side and I treated the maximum dosage of the parasite clear and she's acting better but still not eating, but i think it ay be the quarantine tank that's making her not want to eat. It just has a couple pieces of anacharis in it. She just spends most of her time looking at my display tank i feel so bad keeping her there. So my question is how much longer should I isolate her for and should she be a treat to my other fish. With the parasite medicine shouldn't most of the parasites be dead?

[jeremyblevins]

bump

[jeremyblevins]

Today she is much more active and the spots seem to be diminishing.

[jeremyblevins]

Yay I saw her nibbling at the anacharis plant I threw in there to absorb ammonia

[JohnPaul]

Have you treated her completely according to the directions that came with the medication? It sounds like she is doing much better, but I would not put her back in the community tank quite yet. If the spot continues to diminish and she begins eating again, that would be a positive sign that she might be ready.