White Growths

[tllee]

hi, everyone!

this is my husband’s tank and he has been working away so i have no idea what im doing to take care of it! we have some sick fish. i’ve been looking into their symptoms and they are showing signs of swim bladder, lymphocytis, and maybe even something else. some fish have died, others haven’t. they get these white growths then the ones that have died were listless but very erratic when spooked. then would run into things as if they couldn’t see or completely give up on swimming, sink to the bottom, and hit their face then the next day be dead. the two pictured haven’t died, but im worried about the other fish. the violet yellow tail cannot swim correctly and is always falls into an upright position. you can see the white growths on both his fins. the blue parrot has growths in his gills. they were very big at one point but the last time my husband was home he treated the tank with salt and they decreased in size but didn’t go away completely.

 

[Andy Sager]

hi, everyone!

this is my husband’s tank and he has been working away so i have no idea what im doing to take care of it! we have some sick fish. i’ve been looking into their symptoms and they are showing signs of swim bladder, lymphocytis, and maybe even something else. some fish have died, others haven’t. they get these white growths then the ones that have died were listless but very erratic when spooked. then would run into things as if they couldn’t see or completely give up on swimming, sink to the bottom, and hit their face then the next day be dead. the two pictured haven’t died, but im worried about the other fish. the violet yellow tail cannot swim correctly and is always falls into an upright position. you can see the white growths on both his fins. the blue parrot has growths in his gills. they were very big at one point but the last time my husband was home he treated the tank with salt and they decreased in size but didn’t go away completely.

There are few possible reasons for the way the fish are acting and/or dying. The first thing you need to know is your water's parameters. Ph, Ammonia, Nitrite, Nitrate and General Hardness numbers need to be known to see if they are the reason your fish are having issues. You can't fix fish if their water is not good.
Looking at your picture of the yellowtailed fish, that's not lymphocystis. Lymph will look like a white cottony, fuzzy growth and it usually effects the ends of the fish's fins or body parts as in these pictures:

Lymphocystis is a virus and there is no real cure for it past good water quality. This yellowtailed fish appears to have a wound that is in the process of getting infected which points towards a water quality issue.
The parrotfish issue can also be because the fish is a " Frankenfish" being made up from 2-3 different species that were hybridized. One of the side effects of this practice are tumors and cysts. It could have been coincidence that the salt used shrunk it the first time and it could be poor water quality which is why it is reappearing. The salt makes sense if it is a cyst as it draws out fluids. It should have gone away totally tho. So you need to start with testing the water and we can go from there.

 

[tllee]

There are few possible reasons for the way the fish are acting and/or dying. The first thing you need to know is your water's parameters. Ph, Ammonia, Nitrite, Nitrate and General Hardness numbers need to be known to see if they are the reason your fish are having issues. You can't fix fish if their water is not good.
Looking at your picture of the yellowtailed fish, that's not lymphocystis. Lymph will look like a white cottony, fuzzy growth and it usually effects the ends of the fish's fins or body parts as in these pictures: View attachment 389924
View attachment 389925
Lymphocystis is a virus and there is no real cure for it past good water quality. This yellowtailed fish appears to have a wound that is in the process of getting infected which points towards a water quality issue.
The parrotfish issue can also be because the fish is a " Frankenfish" being made up from 2-3 different species that were hybridized. One of the side effects of this practice are tumors and cysts. It could have been coincidence that the salt used shrunk it the first time and it could be poor water quality which is why it is reappearing. The salt makes sense if it is a cyst as it draws out fluids. It should have gone away totally tho. So you need to start with testing the water and we can go from there.

i did test the water. all levels are good, including ammonia, except for nitrates and general hardness. my husband says he wants the general hardness levels to be high, but he wants me to do a water change for the nitrates. the violet yellow-tail has those growths in both fins in the same spot both sides. these growths have shown up on multiple fish before they go through the other symptoms i’ve listed and die. they look similar to the 3rd and 4th pictures you posted.

 

[tllee]

i did test the water. all levels are good, including ammonia, except for nitrates and general hardness. my husband says he wants the general hardness levels to be high, but he wants me to do a water change for the nitrates. the violet yellow-tail has those growths in both fins in the same spot both sides. these growths have shown up on multiple fish before they go through the other symptoms i’ve listed and die. they look similar to the 3rd and 4th pictures you posted.

**the general hardness levels are high and that’s how my husband wants them so i guess they are good too.

 

[Andy Sager]

**the general hardness levels are high and that’s how my husband wants them so i guess they are good too.

The GH should be high for African Cichlids so if it's low, that can be also be fixed with a water change. If possible, please post a 1 minute video of the tank showing as much of it and the fish as you can.

 

[Andy Sager]

i did test the water. all levels are good, including ammonia, except for nitrates and general hardness. my husband says he wants the general hardness levels to be high, but he wants me to do a water change for the nitrates. the violet yellow-tail has those growths in both fins in the same spot both sides. these growths have shown up on multiple fish before they go through the other symptoms i’ve listed and die. they look similar to the 3rd and 4th pictures you posted.

They might look similar but Lymphocystis does not kill fish unless it grows on the mouth and causes the fish to be unable to eat. If it was just on the fins, it should have been just an annoyance to the fish not a death sentence. It's actually a good thing that it's not Lymph because that's caused by poor water quality and as I said, does not have a cure.

 

[tllee]

The GH should be high for African Cichlids so if it's low, that can be also be fixed with a water change. If possible, please post a 1 minute video of the tank showing as much of it and the fish as you can.

i wasn’t able to post the video so i took some screen shots from it of the fish. it swims almost vertically most of the time.

 

[Andy Sager]

That's a rather eclectic collection because the Silver Dollars need water that's the opposite of African cichlids. That could be part of the problem. Those wounds could be coming from the Dollars ( The fish in the top right corner of the pic also has a chunk out of the bottom of it's tail. ) I also don't recognize the colorful fish on the bottom right under the Silver Dollars . What is that?

 

[tllee]

he got the silver dollars to keep peace between the more aggressive fish when he had more of a mix. he has had them for years now since they were very small. the bigger orange fish under the silver dollars is a blood parrot. he has been wanting to change this tank to only africans because of their different needs, but he needs to get his other display tank back up. they have been doing really well until the last few months. this is the first time he has lost fish in a VERY long time.

 

[tllee]

the silver dollars have not been aggressive towards the other fish. it really is the other way around. the jack dempsey and the violet yellow tail are the more aggressive ones in the tank.

 

[Andy Sager]

he got the silver dollars to keep peace between the more aggressive fish when he had more of a mix. he has had them for years now since they were very small. the bigger orange fish under the silver dollars is a blood parrot. he has been wanting to change this tank to only africans because of their different needs, but he needs to get his other display tank back up. they have been doing really well until the last few months. this is the first time he has lost fish in a VERY long time.

And the plot thickens. JDs are South American Cichlids and under the right circumstances, can live with the Dollars but the Africans are a different story. They also do not need hard alkaline water like the Africans do. This is the problem when trying to mix fish that shouldn't be mixed. The fact that they have been getting along for so long is more a rarity than the norm. Jack Dempseys are aggressive fish. Much more aggressive ( as adults) than the Africans you show in the pictures.
On the one hand, it's highly possible these fish have reached the age where they either need more space to be happy or are old enough that they can be reaching their most aggressive age(s) and taking things out on the other fish. On the other hand, if there is a water quality issue making them more grumpy than usual or the amount of food being fed is not enough to keep them happy, they could be taking these aggressions out on each other because they fear a permanent lack of food.
What you would need to do to treat the infected fish would be in a bare bottomed hospital tank. Depending on what your Ph level is would determine which antibiotic would be best to use.
What could help with the aggression is to rearrange the decorations in the tank so that there would be no established territories and everyone would need to re-establish a territory. Thinning out the weaker fish at this point would also help with this. ( The weaker fish would be any of the ones with dents, dings, scrapes and bruises. Without knowing all the varieties of fish in the tank, I can't say which fish specifically to remove. )
With what you described with the Yellowtail, it's most likely a swim bladder issue and may have been caused by an attack by another fish in the wrong region of the body.
The fish that you described this way " the ones that have died were listless but very erratic when spooked. then would run into things as if they couldn’t see or completely give up on swimming, sink to the bottom, and hit their face then the next day be dead. " sounds like blood flagellates. This is all I have on Blood Flagellates :
All the information I found online regarding this were studies that did not state symptoms. The symptoms you described matched a fish I lost that was autopsied and blood flagellates were found.

Hope this helps. Thumb: