Urgent Help - ALIEN BETTA

[bettaripley]

Hi I have an alien betta fish I'm trying to figure out what is wrong.
It's a very new pop up, I look at him every day and never noticed anything before.
His water has always been clean until I went away and had someone else caring for him (and his tank mates which include a couple loaches and a mystery snail) and it got dirty. This was last month and I've spent the time between then and now just cleaning the tank out without completely tearing it apart on him.

He's got a lump or growth or something on his face. I'll attach the best photo I have for reference but it's not a great photo. It's slightly pinkish in colour.
If someone can try to help me identify what it is so I can treat it? He's been moved to a smaller quarantine tank for the time being.
Thank you to anyone with advice

 

[Andy Sager]

Hi I have an alien betta fish I'm trying to figure out what is wrong.
It's a very new pop up, I look at him every day and never noticed anything before.
His water has always been clean until I went away and had someone else caring for him (and his tank mates which include a couple loaches and a mystery snail) and it got dirty. This was last month and I've spent the time between then and now just cleaning the tank out without completely tearing it apart on him.

He's got a lump or growth or something on his face. I'll attach the best photo I have for reference but it's not a great photo. It's slightly pinkish in colour.
If someone can try to help me identify what it is so I can treat it? He's been moved to a smaller quarantine tank for the time being.
Thank you to anyone with advice

Unfortunately, many Bettas today are prone to tumors and that is most likely what this fish has. Often they are brought about by dirty water and dirty tank conditions. Quite common with Alien Bettas are tumors where the iridescent cells bunch up over each other. The good news is that most tumors on Bettas are benign and not dangerous to the fish's health unless they form where they blind the fish or around the mouth and the fish can't eat. The bad news is that while they can appear unsightly, there is nothing you can do to treat them past keeping the water clean and feeding them a good diet. You and the fish just need to live with them. Keep in mind also that while poor conditions could be the cause of tumors, so is their genetics, their diet and any kind of stress could also be the cause so you could have the best tank with the best water quality and best diet and the fish can still come down with tumors because of their genetics. That's just the way it has become. Wild caught fish have less occasions of tumors than the farm raised hybrids that most people buy.

Hope this helps.

 

[bettaripley]

Unfortunately, many Bettas today are prone to tumors and that is most likely what this fish has. Often they are brought about by dirty water and dirty tank conditions. Quite common with Alien Bettas are tumors where the iridescent cells bunch up over each other. The good news is that most tumors on Bettas are benign and not dangerous to the fish's health unless they form where they blind the fish or around the mouth and the fish can't eat. The bad news is that while they can appear unsightly, there is nothing you can do to treat them past keeping the water clean and feeding them a good diet. You and the fish just need to live with them. Keep in mind also that while poor conditions could be the cause of tumors, so is their genetics, their diet and any kind of stress could also be the cause so you could have the best tank with the best water quality and best diet and the fish can still come down with tumors because of their genetics. That's just the way it has become. Wild caught fish have less occasions of tumors than the farm raised hybrids that most people buy.

Hope this helps.

Thank you for your insight. I was hopeful it was not a tumor but if that's what it is I will just continue to hope it isn't harmful for him.
I'll clean his whole tank thoroughly to just get that over with for now.

 

[Andy Sager]

Thank you for your insight. I was hopeful it was not a tumor but if that's what it is I will just continue to hope it isn't harmful for him.
I'll clean his whole tank thoroughly to just get that over with for now.

Just remember, there is cleaning and then there is over cleaning. Fish do not come from a sterile environment so you don't wan to sterilize the tank, just keep the water as clean as possible and do your gravel cleaning a section at a time, not the whole thing at one time.