White Bump/growth On Archer

[Ranger]

Hello everyone, I am a new user to the forum, so hello!

On to the issue... My smaller Archer fish, I forget the exact type but its one of the more common ones and of the less brackish type; toxidae...? starts with an M. But it has developed a white lump or growth of some sort on the front base of its top fin. At first I thought it may have gotten a cut while jumping for its food while I wasn't looking but upon further inspection I didn't notice a break in the skin. Could this be the beginning of ich?

Any help would be appreciated!

 

[nmonks]

How big is the bump? Velvet and whitespot are icing sugar/salt grain size respectively. Bigger lumps are more likely to be things like lymphocystis (a harmless but annoyingly slow to go away "wart" caused by a virus and/or environmental factors).

Cheers,

Neale

 

[Ranger]

It's not very big. It actually looks like it has gotten smaller. Initially it was about the size of the tip of a standard ballpoint pen. I hope it'll go away on its own, as the fish seems fine otherwise.

 

[Ranger]

Hmm, well the white bump is pretty much gone now, but all my Archers are now acting strange... Sometimes when I come into my room (where my tank is) they are all scattered about the tank towards the bottom, when normally they are all together at the top tank in one of the corners. A couple of them now have a few tiny whitespots on their tail fins and the larger one looks like he has lost a couple of his scales. I'm doing my weekly water change today so I was wondering if I should do something extra that might help them? If there is even anything wrong with them at all..

Edit: The larger one has also developed a twitch.

 

[nmonks]

OK, we need some background here before we can figure out what's going on.

Firstly, which species do you have. There are three species more or less commonly traded. Aquarium books tend to call them all Toxotes jaculatrix and retailers usually have no idea. Two species need brackish water, one prefers fresh but tolerates slightly brackish. If this latter species (T. microlepis) is kept in too-salty water it tends to be visibly unhappy. I've got some diagrams that might help on my FAQ.

http/homepage.mac.com/nmonks/aquaria/bra....html#toxotidae

Second, how many specimens do you have, and what are they with. Archers tend to work best either singly or in groups of 5 or more. Twos and threes are notoriously unreliable, with dominant fish (perhaps the males?) bullying the others. This can account for fin damage and loss of scales. Although archers are fast and fairly robust animals, certain fish, such as pufferfish or moray eels, could potentially harm them, the latter especially at night.

Third, what water conditions do you have. The water needs to be fairly warm (at least 25C), hard, alkaline, and depending on the species either freshwater or brackish.

It does sound as if you simply have some whitespot, and I'd tend to treat the water pro-actively with a combination whitespot/fin-rot remedy. Be sure and use one that is safe in brackish water (if in doubt, use a marine aquarium formulation).

Cheers,

Neale

 

[Ranger]

I am 95% sure that they are the freshwater version. I do keep my tank lightly salted tho, maybe i put more in on accident last water change . I keep 2 archers with a senegal bichir (dinosaur eel) and a Pleco. Water temp is currently at 27-28C

Edit: I don't have time atm to give you full water stats cuz i gotta go to work, im hoping the water change will flush out the salt and I'll see if they improve.