I, too, had a glass fish with white bubbly kind of stuff on his fins and tail. I don't think he was not like that when I brought him home. My mistake was that he was a painted glass fish (I now call them "tainted"
At the time I had no idea that painted meanted actual paint. I didn't think someone actually had that much time on their hands that they would think to paint a fish.
Sorry, didn't mean to rant.
Anyway, the white, bubbly stuff multiplied. Brought him to LFS, and they said it wasn't ick, but scare tissue probably from the net. Then he took the fish out of the container and rubbed it between his fingers - the stuff came off. So I took it back home. And being that I have a 7 yr old boy, I hid the net to eliminate rough netting.
Didn't matter, the bubbles grew and grew. Didn't seem to be bother him, still chased some fish around, still ate like a pig. Just getting a tad funky. I went through rubbing him off several times over the course of several weeks. I began to question this "treatment" and started to check into the bubbles myself.
There is a disease called Lymphocystis which is a viral growth that can appear on fins and skin. Lymph. will as a white to gray califlower growths that can be seen on the tips of the fins, and can then spreas to other areas.
Here is my
favorite part...
Generally Lymph results from unusual stress, such as Shock.
Doh!
i.e. getting painted by someone a hundred times bigger than you, and not being able to breath...
Lymph that appears on a new addition to a tank is most likely caused from the stress of capture and transport.
Treatment
The suggestions are as many as their fish in the sea.
According to
"Complete Aquarium Problem Solver"
by Kevin W. Boyd, Tetra Press
This was stated there:
Lymph is not extremely contagious or fatal, leave the fish in the main tank and let the disease run it's course. But in order to do that, you had better have someone check it out. Would hate to see you reintroduce and ick fish, and infect the hole community...
Check out some pictures of Lymph, then get a magnifying glass and take a long look...is it a plain bump, or is it cauliflower.
Best of luck!
