Eggs or some sort of parasite?

Mrxia0 · Aug 30, 2020

What’s this behind the gills? Are they eggs? I only have one Bengaii cardinal. I haven’t added any new fish in over a year.

Jay Hemdal · Aug 30, 2020

I see two growths - the larger yellow one at the top, and a darker, smaller one lower down. Did these appear suddenly? They don't look smooth like eggs, more like hyperplasia - growths. Captive fish commonly develop tumor-like growths of their thyroid glands (goiter), and I've seen that in Bangaii cardinals, but the upper yellow growth is too high up to be that.

Fish do develop tumors, some are cancer and some are benign.

Jay

Mrxia0 · Aug 30, 2020

They seem to have appeared suddenly, the yellow growths are on both sides of its gills. Probably not much I could do for it then if it’s tumors right?

Jay Hemdal · Aug 30, 2020

Mrxia0 said:
They seem to have appeared suddenly, the yellow growths are on both sides of its gills. Probably not much I could do for it then if it’s tumors right?

Correct, nothing you can do for tumors. However, tumors grow over time and don’t appear suddenly, so something else is probably going on here, I’m just unsure what it could be!
Jay

ichthyogeek · Aug 30, 2020

Perhaps a fatty tumor growth? It's a fairly chunky fish, and adipocytes tend to be yellow-ish, right?

Jay Hemdal · Aug 30, 2020

ichthyogeek said:
Perhaps a fatty tumor growth? It's a fairly chunky fish, and adipocytes tend to be yellow-ish, right?

Yes, but the OP says they appeared suddenly. Perhaps they were growing under the operculum, and then suddenly became visible when they got to a size that pushed the operculum open?
Jay