# African with growth on face



## Jum (Apr 7, 2010)

This is my first post on this forum. I have used some of your advice in the past, however. I have an established african tank. It is 80 gallons with 9 mixed africans and a synodontis. All fish have been in the tank for at least 18 months. Some of the fish are 3+ years in the tank.

I run a 50% marine substrate with round natural medium as the other 50%. I have a ph of 8.2 and zero ammonia / nitrite. Nitrates are around 20ppm. I do a weekly 15% water change and a full cleaning every 3-4 weeks. I have a ton of breeding. I literally give away 10 or so fish every month.

I have been very lucky and have had few issues with fish. I dealt with a bloat problem once when I didn't pay close enough attention to the water temps during a change. Only one fish got sick, but he did survive. I used the clout regiment suggested on this site and it worked wonders. I think that will cover most questions you might have about the tank itself. Now here is my problem. I have my largest cichlid with a growth on his face. It is becoming massive. He had lived in my tank for over 3 years. I say "he" although I have no idea if it is a male. I call him LB for obvious reasons. He is about 8 inches.

It started about 3 months ago. It was a small wart like red bump that was near his left eye. You will see the original spot in the pics I link. It didn't change much in a week so I removed him into my sick tank. I treated with Myracyn for the suggested timeframe then I did a Melafix treatment for one week. The bump didn't completely go away, but it receded and the normal skin color was returning over the bump. I put him back in the normal tank and things were ok for about a month. I went on a week long trip last week and when I got home the were alot worse. The bump seems to have spread and is much larger then the original. It is now more centered on his head. I moved him back to the sick tank but I am concerned I am not treating correctly. I assumed the original bump was damage caused by all his digging. He is one of the breeders in my tank and is contantly at work. I know the marine substrate can be sharp at times so it seemed logical. I am now thinking it might be a parasite. I never feed them live food. I never feed them dried shrimp. I do feed them fresh lettuce occasionally.

I probably overfeed but I use a Fluval FX5 and a Aquaclear 110 on the tank. The water is always clear and smells clean. At the end of last summer my wife told me she found a spider in the house and fed it to the fish. When I got home the spider was long gone. I'm not sure if that could cause a parasite or not. She told me that she does not normally do that and it just seemed like a good idea at the time. Here are 4 pics of the problem. Sorry for such a wordy post.

It seems I cannot post the pics or links to the pics. It says I need 5 posts. This doesn't help me much.

I will post the link as text and you can copy / paste I guess. I'm sure I would get more help with pics.

popeye .zftp. com /files/ growth01.JPG
popeye .zftp. com /files/ growth02.JPG
popeye .zftp. com /files/ growth03.JPG
popeye .zftp. com /files/ growth04.JPG

You will need to remove the spaces in the links when you copy / paste them. If an admin can make it so I can make the link without a 5 post minimum then I will fix the links.

Thanks for any help.


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## Jum (Apr 7, 2010)

Now that I have 5 posts I can link actual images. Anyone have any ideas?

http://popeye.zftp.com/files/growth01.JPG
http://popeye.zftp.com/files/growth02.JPG
http://popeye.zftp.com/files/growth03.JPG


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## ladybugzcrunch (Jul 26, 2009)

Looks like a tumor to me.


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## Jum (Apr 7, 2010)

Thanks for the reply. I am starting to think the same thing. He is still in QT and eating fine but the growth isn't getting better.


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