Hi

One of my cardinal tetras has what looks like a whitehead pimple on the back of his tail. Now, I know its not actually a zit, its just what it looks like to me, and the best way of describing it. Its visible on both sides of him, and sticks out when you view him head/tail on. It doesn't look fuzzy like a fungus, and isn't a whitespot grain (I know what that looks like). His colours still look good and he's swimming fine with the other 9 cardinals.

I've had these guys for well over 6 months, they've been fantastic, great colours, didn't lose a single one when I added them, which I was kidna expecting as I heard they can be a bit delicate. My tank has been cycled for nearly a year now, haven't added anything new or done anything different from the usual routine for several months now.


What could it be? A tumour of some sort? Please don't tell me its the start of something nasty like neon tetra disease, as these guys are so closely related to neons...

Thanks

Some pics of him with the other guys - two flash, one not
 P2030389.JPG ( 30.77K ) Number of downloads: 1

 P2030390.JPG ( 25.89K ) Number of downloads: 1

 P2030397.JPG ( 22.13K ) Number of downloads: 1



Sorry bout the quality of this one, but its the only one I got where you can kind of see how it sticks out on his tail.
 P2030380.JPG ( 18.02K ) Number of downloads: 1



Any help would be appreciated.

I don't know what it is but i have seen it quite a few neons before.

I'd wait for wilder's advice on this but it could be columnaris....alot of it going around at the moment!

looks like ich to me, the other fish seem to also show these white spots if u see the pics.

Whats ich?

No, none of the other fish have anything like this. I really don't think its ich. My platies had ich months and months ago, and this doesn't look like that. It looks bigger, and rather than a grain of salt, it looks like a little whitehead pimple, and its poking out both sides of his tail.

I'll hang on and see what wilder has to say....

I had a case like that ; treated with fungus med. works:)

Bumping, hopefully Wilder or someone else might see...

I had them whitspot on my fish and never could get rid of them.
They can be columnaris spots they tend to have a circling of red around the edges.
Spots that look like an eye shape can be lympthocystis.
I would treat the pimple as bacterial.

This post has been edited by Wilder: Feb 5 2008, 08:31 PM

Thanks Wilder

Well, its kinda hard to tell if it has red around the edges seeing as the 'zit' is on the red part of the cardinal tetra! Typical.

Should I medicate the tank? What med would you suggest?

I had a cardinal with the same 'zit' in the same spot, it had it when I got it, for a while it got bigger then gradually cleared up itself and didnt spread to the other fish. The cardinal had it for about four months, I didnt treat it with anything as I had no idea what it was.

Put eye instead of egg shaped.
They don't always clear up on there own, I would try a bacterial med.