Lumpy white mass on WCMM tail

[Kiefer]

Was looking at this tank extra closely the last few days trying to catch fish and I noticed this little guy has some weird lumpy stuff on his tail

Parameters
pH - ~6.2
temp - 69
nitrites/ammonia - 0 (there is some ammonium from substrate, ada soil tank)
nitrates - 10 or less
kH - 0 (ada buffering aquasoil)
gH - 150ish

There is another white cloud in this tank with popeye but only in one eye, and there was another one who had a similar issue in the past but recovered from it on his own. I assumed this was battle damage since all 3 of these fish are male. My best guess is this is some kind of bacterial infection/inflammation, the picture isnt the best but looking super closely at it it's not fuzzy like a fungus.

 

[Colu]

Could be a  bacterial  or viral  I would Qarantine and treat with aquarium salt 1 table spoon for 2 gallons and kanaplex in food that doesn't look good I would start treatment as soon as possible

Edited January 2, 2022 by Colu

[Kiefer]

Thanks for the advice. I went ahead and pulled him out into a quarantine bucket with air major self-own, I have no meds and only table salt, only started keeping fish this June! Will pick up some salt for him tomorrow and will observe the others (and other fish, of course I just moved fish from this tank to another tank) and isolate them as well if i see anything else.

He's a bit younger than my other white clouds and was added in back in early November.

[Kiefer]

Welp, sorry for the necro but I wanted to follow up and tell the story, which is unfortunately over for this lil' guy. So isolated him in a bucket with salt for about a week with zero improvement. His condition wasn't improving and in fact the stress of being isolated had him translucent, I started feeling too bad for him and what was worse, most of the other fish in the tank started showing signs of bacterial infection (busted jaws, popeye, bent spines), at that point I figured there was no point in quarantine and I should treat the tank.

I tried antibiotics for gram negative and gram positive bacterial infections both in the food and in the water and neither had any effect. Worse, my paradise fish started having issues, he started having poor coloration and lack of energy. Most things I read on bacterial infections imply that they're measured in days and I had noticed this slow buildup of bacterial symptoms in my fish over the course of several months. He ended up dying in March and a few other fish also died.

In April, I figured out what the problem was. My tank has ADA aquasoil substrate, the pH is very low and there are tons of plants. I read an article by Walstad about mycobacteriosis developing in one of her rainbowfish tanks and the way she described the tank was exactly what I had. Apparently they reproduce much more slowly than typical bacteria but are less negatively effected by acidic water conditions. In a 'normal' tank they get outcompeted for resources by faster growing bacteria but in low pH, high organic matter systems they proliferate. Instead of being a rapid infection it progresses slowly due to how slowly they reproduce. And mycobacterium are basically unaffected by antibiotics.

She solved her problem by reducing feeding and installing a UV sterilizer, which reduced the bacterial load enough for her fishs' immune systems to fight it off. I did the same and gradually everyone who was alive started being much more active (I did lose one that had an extremely bent spine, just wasn't going to recover), so I think they're as 'cured' as they're going to be, but the long-term damage was still there. This guy's lump stopped growing but was larger than it was in the pic, he later developed a swim bladder problem which might have been related to the stress, no clue. He was struggling to swim, couldn't feed, etc so I decided it was probably time to euthanize yesterday. All in all I lost the paradise fish, and about a third of my white clouds, but learned a lot from the experience.

TL;DR In low pH, high organic matter tanks be aware that mycobacteriosis (fish TB) can cause issues even if your parameters are fine on paper.

[Guppysnail]

I’m sorry for your losses. I appreciate you sharing this very informative follow up.  

[Torrey]

On 5/13/2022 at 7:23 AM, Kiefer said:

Welp, sorry for the necro but I wanted to follow up and tell the story, which is unfortunately over for this lil' guy. So isolated him in a bucket with salt for about a week with zero improvement. His condition wasn't improving and in fact the stress of being isolated had him translucent, I started feeling too bad for him and what was worse, most of the other fish in the tank started showing signs of bacterial infection (busted jaws, popeye, bent spines), at that point I figured there was no point in quarantine and I should treat the tank.

I tried antibiotics for gram negative and gram positive bacterial infections both in the food and in the water and neither had any effect. Worse, my paradise fish started having issues, he started having poor coloration and lack of energy. Most things I read on bacterial infections imply that they're measured in days and I had noticed this slow buildup of bacterial symptoms in my fish over the course of several months. He ended up dying in March and a few other fish also died.

In April, I figured out what the problem was. My tank has ADA aquasoil substrate, the pH is very low and there are tons of plants. I read an article by Walstad about mycobacteriosis developing in one of her rainbowfish tanks and the way she described the tank was exactly what I had. Apparently they reproduce much more slowly than typical bacteria but are less negatively effected by acidic water conditions. In a 'normal' tank they get outcompeted for resources by faster growing bacteria but in low pH, high organic matter systems they proliferate. Instead of being a rapid infection it progresses slowly due to how slowly they reproduce. And mycobacterium are basically unaffected by antibiotics.

She solved her problem by reducing feeding and installing a UV sterilizer, which reduced the bacterial load enough for her fishs' immune systems to fight it off. I did the same and gradually everyone who was alive started being much more active (I did lose one that had an extremely bent spine, just wasn't going to recover), so I think they're as 'cured' as they're going to be, but the long-term damage was still there. This guy's lump stopped growing but was larger than it was in the pic, he later developed a swim bladder problem which might have been related to the stress, no clue. He was struggling to swim, couldn't feed, etc so I decided it was probably time to euthanize yesterday. All in all I lost the paradise fish, and about a third of my white clouds, but learned a lot from the experience.

TL;DR In low pH, high organic matter tanks be aware that mycobacteriosis (fish TB) can cause issues even if your parameters are fine on paper.

Thank you for the deep dive into the explanation!