# disease identification please?



## Celeste (May 13, 2005)

can anyone tell me what this is? most of my fish have it and have had it for the past year and a half. it's like these thick white lumps on their fins. it's on their pectoral fins and tails. also, on the two butterfly koi, the edges of their fins are ragged. it seems to get better in the winter and worse in the summer. i had another forum tell me it was something called Carp Pox and that it was non-fatal and non-treatable, that it was just ugly but it wouldn't hurt the fish. it doesn't effect their behavior, they eat fine, act fine, swim fine, etc. they just have these ugly lumps on their fins.....


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## TheOldSalt (Jan 28, 2005)

It's viral.
Possibly Cyprinoherpes virus-1

It might be Lymphocystis, but my first guess would be carp pox since the warts are so nicely round and on the fins instead of on the body. HOWEVER, Carp pox tends to be a bit pinkish in color. Carp pox looks a lot like cancer, and indeed the cellular damage done makes it very hard to distinguish from cancer.
In rare cases, ick will also form big globules like this instead of bursting out normally, but this is so rare it's not worth considering.

Warts, basically, is exactly what they are, but they are communicable. They can be physically removed with minor surgery and disinfectant, or under good water conditions they'll eventually go away after several months.

What is the water temp? Carp pox tends to vanish once the water hits 80F for a few days, and the use of a bit of salt and fluke-tabs type medicine speeds up the process. If your water is already warm and has been warm since last year when they first got it, the it's a good bet that carp pox is not the problem, but it is instead just Lymphocystis. In that case the surgical removal/or/just wait it out method will do nicely to cure it. There is no practical medicinal cure that I can think of, although a lot of people have been working on it for quite some time. maybe some human anti-viral drug can work for it, but again, cutting off the warts has always been a good cure anyway.


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## Celeste (May 13, 2005)

no, we leave them outside all year around. right now the water is maybe 60 degrees. it usually gets up to 75, MAYBE all the way to 80, but it seems to get worse in warmer weather. last summer, they had these warts ALL OVER their fins. it almost went away during the WINTER when the water can get down to 35 degrees.


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## TheOldSalt (Jan 28, 2005)

Well, now we're back to carp pox. It fades in winter, gets worse as things warm up, but it dies back again at 80F.
It's fish herpes, literally. I don't know of any cases of it spreading to humans, but I wouldn't be surprised by it, so be careful when handling them, and watch where you dump the water from the pool on water changes.

My pools all hit 85-90 in the summer if I don't heavily aerate them, so I don't have this problem. I produce a lot of goldfish in the spring, but have to get them distributed by summer. Then I grow tropicals.

You might be able to raise the temp to 80 by putting a plastic sheeting/wood 2X4 framework greenhouse around your pool for several days. A week at 80-81 and a litle bit of salt ( 0.3% salinity ) has long been used as a temporary cure.


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## ALFA WOLF (May 24, 2005)

HAHHAHAHA fish herpes are u serious thats real.


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## Celeste (May 13, 2005)

have you ever had a cold sore? that's a strain of herpes virus too.


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