Can severums get tumors?

[davconrad70]

These are initially internal, like a tumor or growth. Bacterial infection? Then some can become these external-looking growths, like a fungal growth on the outside, but I'm sure it's the internal growth pushing through.
All completely healthy tankmates: green severum, 5 silver dollars, 4 pearl gourami, 75 gallon tank with canister filter, Neutral Regultor to manage 7.0pH and consistent quality numbers.
He was still eating well, but I just noticed a decline in appetite.
Thanks for any insight!

 

[Andy Sager]

Yes, Severums can get tumors. Any fish can get tumors actually. Tumors are not usually caused by an infection as much as they are caused by abnormal cell growth. Often times, these abnormalities are genetic or viral and sadly, because of so much farm breeding and interbreeding to get colors, tumors are more prevalent in these farmed fish. Thankfully, unless the tumor is in the way of the mouth, fish can usually live with the tumors but in your fish's case, these tumors are close to the brain and that may be why a decrease in appetite. There's also another issue that is cranial worms that fish can have. It's a shot in the dark but you could try to treat the fish in a separate hospital tank with levamisole hydrochloride. This is found in products like Fritz Expel-P and Wormer-X by Modern Aquarium. This does not kill the worms but paralyzes them so this needs to be used in a bare bottom hospital tank so that when you see any worms expelled, you siphon them out of the tank.
Lastly, tumors can be cause by environmental issues. While most fish get hole in the head from poor water quality, extended exposure to poor water quality can cause tumors.
So you now have some things to check to see if any of them are the cause.

Hope this helps.