Cardinal Tetra Illness - With Photos

[dazbud]

Can anyone say for certain what this illness is?
 
I noticed a few weeks ago that one of my cardinals was pinkish rather than red on its belly. It was eating and swimming so I took no action. Couple of weeks later I had a closer look and the body seems to be lumpy with some kind of whitish bobbles around it. I took it out of the tank and placed in quarantine. I gave it a dose of Interpet Fungus and Finrot treatment. This had no effect, so then I followed on with a dose of Esha2000, which is a broad range treatment covering fungus, bactertial, and parasite condition.  I completed the dose without any improvement and then did another straight after.
 
Still no improvement, so I've added the fish back to the tank where behaviour seems normally. I can't be totally sure, but I think one other cardinal might be showing early signs of the same thing.
 
As the scales appear raised and faded, I did think it was probably dropsy. However, Esha 2000 is meant to treat dropsy so I'm guessing not.
 
Can anyone definitely identify the cause? Is it contagious? Should I just put the affected one to sleep?

 

[dazbud]

So many views no replies ?

 

[WILDER]

Are the lumps beneath the skin or on top?
Are the lumps raising the scales?
Check with a magnifying glass to see if you can see anything below the scales?
When you say bobbles not quite sure what you mean. Can you explain a bit more in detail please?

 

[star4]

It looks like it is producing extra slime coat for some reason.
 
Loosing colour could be down to old age, do you know how old the fish is roughly? the two pics on the left look like there are a couple of ich spots, which if it is sick ich could then attack the fish.
 
What dechlorinator are you using? or have you changed it recently?
 
Have you added any plants, decor etc recently something that could be causing an irriration?

 

[dazbud]

The fish were most likely over a year old as they were bought large. Conditioner is Prime. No new fish added for a while, but a couple of new plants were introduced.
 
I ended up removing the two affected fish as a precaution. The others have been fine since.