It is very soft and its there since last year.

IME it is carp pox.
there is no effective treatment for it and it is not life threatening to the fish.
it is caused by a virus similar to hepatitis in us.
the lump may go away if the fish is placed into a warmer environment, IE raise the temp of its water to around 26C
however as soon as it goes back into coldwater the lump will probably come back.

I had read a few article of people lancing the lumps off, but this is could leave a scar just as ugly as the lump.
if it were my fish, I'd just leave well alone.

This post has been edited by The-Wolf: Dec 11 2007, 07:15 PM

Does anyone know if there are diseases unique to Platys ? We have no obvious signs of disease (no growths, white spots, cotton wool, bloating, etc) but the platys seem to go incredibly "skinny" in a very short time and then die. We have corys, rasboras, harlequins, frogs, filteer shrimps and lamp eyes - all of which we have had for ages and not lost any. We are losing a platy every couple of weeks. They are eating food OK. At first, we thought it was the oldest ones dying and perhaps it was old age, but now we lose young ones too.

Any ideas ?

Sounds like internal parasites. What's their poo like? Start a thread of your own and you'll get more replies.

Warning, I would just like to let everyone know that if you have a Chinese Hi Fin Shark, and you want to treat it for fin or tail rot disease do not by any means use Aquarium Pharmaceuticals melifix on it for treatment. I just lost my fish this evening after only the second doseage of this medication which is suppose to be given for seven days and cures fin rot. This was a fairly new fish which I had for 6 weeks. All my fish are in good health with the exception of this fish's upper part of his tail which had some fin rot and was starting to spread but overall in good health and eating fine . I never had any problems with any of my fish before when using this medication, but I found out the hard way not to use it on Chinese Hi Fin Sharks as it killed mine and I am letting everyone know to be careful when using this medication on them as they are a smooth skinned fish.

This post has been edited by joey8117: Mar 18 2008, 03:36 AM

sorry if this sounds blunt joey
perhaps it was the best thing for the fish, seeing how big they get and really shouldn't be kept in anything smaller than the Mekong

I have a male guppy and it looks really fat. I have been limiting his food and I am wondering what this could be.

Any thoughts?

This post has been edited by spazmonkey: May 20 2008, 04:26 PM