Weird lump on side of body?

[waveseeker]

Me better fish has a very large weird lump on her side, It does not seem to effect her swimming, but it is the size of a pea, so that is sort of scary on a betta's body.

Here are a lot of details that may or may not mean anything.

The tank is 30 gallons, She lives with a 8 inch Pleco, in a 30 gallon filtered, Heated tank.
I clean the tank about once a month or two, because the waste is so light,

She USED to have a LOT of sisters in a sorority, but after i added a few to the stock, all of them had died within one week of dropsy, save her.

Fed twice daily, skipping a day every week, Pellets, and very rarely Blood worms as a treat.

Here are some pictures i have tried to take of it. The lump is on her right side. and i did not notice it yesterday...






Sorry about how blurry they are, But it's what i managed.

[veggiegirl]

Hey there,
Do you mean that the lump has only appeared in the last day or so or that is just when you nomticed it? Plecos and catfish can sometimes suck onto the sides of other fish so maybe this has happened to her, or she may have injured herself on something else in the tank? If it had been there long term I would say it was a tumor, I have had a few bettas with them but the lump never affected them in their life time except for one but he was already really old.

Your tank is pretty big however catfish produce a lot of waste especially a pleco of that size so I would suggest weekly or at least fortnightly vacumm syphons.

Just keep a close eye on your girl, if it did just appear a day or so ago it is more likely injury and if she seems otherwise happy then she should be just fine. Good luck

[callistra]

You need to be doing weekly water changes of no less than 20-50%. This needs to include a gravel vac. If you only clean it every month or two you have a big water quality issue. I would do a series of 3 or 4 large 50% water changes over the next 3-4 days and also use a drops kit to test ammonia, nitrite and nitrate. DRopsy is a condition of poor water quality too, btw. You can never go so long without a water change.

Looks like she's bloated to me. What color is her poop? If it's white, clear, segmented or stringy she has an internal infection and will require meds.

I'd fast a few days and treat with epsom salts - pure 100% magnesium sulfate per ingredients label with no dyes or perfumes. Predissolve it at a rate of maybe 1/2-1 tsp per gallon and add slowly to the tank over the course of an hour to avoid ph shock. Salts only need to be redosed with water changes. They don't break down and they don't evaporate.

[puplove52]

it might be swim bladder. it means the betta it's constipated. get a frozen pea and let it defrost to room temp. feed to the betta, it works as a laxative. don't feed him betta food for a whole day. hope this helps.

[callistra]

I do not suggest feeding peas. They are really hard on the digestive system and not necessary. Also, there are lots of wrong ways to do it.. like the way described above.. so I would suggest not doing that.

[waveseeker]

thanks for all the replies!

Veggie, When i did do the siphons weekly or bi weekly, The water was REALLY clean, very little waste, (this is after the tank went down to two fish.)The Ph levels are normal, the water seems fine.
I will keep a very close eye :)

I will try out the salt and fasting

Wouldn't swim bladder be on both sides? and the bump is not where the stomach is, it's not red, it's white, (with a small black dot on it if that means anything)

Thanks everyone!

[TheCheese909]

It honestly looks like a tumor to me since it's quite round and on the side of the body away from where we would normally see bloat :\


It looks similar to these, correct?

http://i173.photobucket.com/albums/w...tki/malib5.jpg


http://oi42.tinypic.com/6htjko.jpg

http://sphotos-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphoto...68746904_n.jpg

[Oldfishlady]

Sounds more like a parasite-either flukes or fish lice-the way I treat these is by manual removal and sometimes I might QT and use salt along with partial water changes. It could also be a tumor or fatty liver.

What kind of pleco, how long has the tank been setup, what kind of filter and filter media care.

If this tank has been setup for several months without proper water changes-be careful making too large and too many water changes in the beginning, unless you can check the nitrate and pH-

Do you have a test kit and any water prams to share of both your tank and source water with and without your normal additives so we have a base-line.

The sudden changes of high nitrate and pH in neglected tanks can shock and kill the fish. If you can't check the nitrate and pH-I would make small daily water changes starting at 10% and increase by 10% every 3rd day-vacuum in all places you can reach without moving anything every 3rd day too. Once you reach 50%-make a second 50% with good vacuum the next day. Give the filter media a good rinse/swish in the bucket of old tank water on day 1 and on the first 50% water only change.

Then get on a regular water change schedule of 50% weekly with vacuum-cleaning the filter media a couple of times a month.

Even if the water appears clean and clear or even if the water prams are WNL-you can have DOC that we don't test for that can be harmful-Then you can have nitrate that builds up and pH changes that normally occur in neglected tanks. This is where some of the myths come from-"Water change killed my fish."
Aquariums are closed systems and nothing leaves them until we remove it with inert substrate and without lots of active growing plants. The filter will remove the large debris-but it still in the tank being cycled over and over until the biofilter takes care of it and if the biofilter isn't taken care of properly-it won't help the system.

IMO/E-feeding small pieces of de-shelled Pea is not harmful to a Betta, however, you don't want to use Peas as part of their staple diet-but use for constipation on occasion shouldn't cause any problems.