ywg with white patches on body and pinhead size lumps that are yellow

[peasofme]

there's a yellow watchman goby at the lfs with whitish discolorations on his skin, pinhead size lumps (they actually look like pinheads, under the skin) that are the same color of the fish on his body near his tail and near and on his fins on the side of his body, skin and fins had a ragged appearance, and a reddish line right above his lips. he also has this small mass of skin cells on top of his head like the one on the bird wrasse under Lymphocystis http://www.chucksaddiction.com/disease.html from looking on this page, i think he may either have lymphocystis or fish tuberculosis. he came in on tuesday and was emaciated and i saw him scratch only once. i saw him today and he had eaten himself fat, did not scratch (watched him for an hour), was hovering just above the gravel in the open, was breathing normally and acted like a healthy fish besides the above mentioned things. he eats live brine and flake food readily. anyone know what he has or has some info? thanks

[Marinefish]

Maybe something stung him?

[leebca]

Many of the Goby family have been coming through the system with an infection. I have not been able to identify it, microscopically. I have had experts (veterinarians specializing in ornamental marine fishes) review photos of these fishes with no one able to provide a diagnosis. However, there is a cure that works more than 80% of the time. It is costly and time consuming. Don't buy that fish.

Regarding 'fat' fish. A fish stores its reserve energy (what we call fat) on the top of the fish -- the dorsal side. It takes weeks to replenish this supply from having nearly no reserve to full reserve. The area of the fish we refer to as its 'stomach' is not the area to determine whether or not it has fat. That area shows bloating during diseases and when the fish has blockages in the intestinal track or has overeaten. Determining which of these is the case is hard sometimes.

[peasofme]

are fish in his tank going to be infected? will that tank continue to be infected after he is gone? how long will he survive? i saw him poop out what looked like poop made out of frozen food but it was reddish. he was eating live brine. thanks

[leebca]

Good questions. Hope you understand that knowing so little about this that answers are guesses. So far it seems to not be highly contagious. So far it doesn't seem to contaminate the aq system.

[peasofme]

update: he is looking healthy now except for the pinheads. they don't seem to be as bad as they were. i wonder if they will disappear completely. is he contagious to other gobies?

[leebca]

don't know. It is suspected of being contagious between gobies.