Possible gill parasite?

[dodger1v]

I'm usually a pretty observant fish-watcher but it looks like a possible serious situation has gone unnoticed by me. I was watching my Copper Banded Butterfly eat today when I noticed something strange about her gills. The flaps that push water through her gills seemed to be a bit more puffed out then usual and she seemed to be breathing a bit harder.

I tried like crazy to get a picture but it's impossible. She's a shy fish to begin with and I just couldn't get the right angle so I'm going to do my best to try and describe what I'm seeing here and hope someone can help. Upon closer inspection it looks like there are 3 round shiny masses that are causing her gill flaps to become distended. 2 in her left gill area are right next to each other and are actually so big they sort of stick out just so slightly beyond the end of the gill flap. The other on the right side is smaller. They're shiny silver in color with splotches that have the same coloration of the coralline algae in my tank, rounded in shape, and on both sides they occur in the same spot.

Does anyone have any idea what I'm seeing here. I know this is near impossible to imagine and a picture would help but I tried for a long time to get a good picture.

Thanks so much for your time to those who respond all your help is much appreciated.

 

[dodger1v]

Tried again to get more pictures. They're impossible to see with my camera. All of my water parameters are spot on.

Temp: 79
Salinity 1.024
Nitrates: less then 10ppm
Phosphates: undetectable
Ph: 8.3

I've had my CBB for 22 months and she's the healthiest fish I've ever seen. Nice and fat, bold, swims around the tank and eats like a champ. Its just these round things showed up inside her gills a few months ago and I didn't really think anything of them. They were really small and in the same spot on both sides so I didn't think anything of it. Now the 2 on the left side have gotten to about the size of a small M&M and are right next to each other. The one on the right is just one and they're both occurring in the exact same spot. The best description I can think of is to say they look like small silver jelly beans with reddish purple colored splotches on them.

Has anyone ever had their fish develop tumors on their body anywhere like this? Or any problems with their gills that are similar. I've been reading for 3 days and it doesn't look like any parasite picture. Not even close to any of the pictures. She does not exhibit any scratching at all. Her breathing looks to be a bit more rapid then normal but other then that she's acting normally.

 

[kevin2000]

You might consider a FW dip .. many of the parasites that end up in gills (flukes etc) will be dislodged by a simple FW dip. Heres a link on how to perform.

http://www.petsforum.com/personal/trevor-jones/freshwaterdips.html

Hope this helps.

 

[dodger1v]

Ok so I finally caught my CBB and did the freshwater dip.

I have a few questions. I have never done one of these myself so I'm hoping some people can answer some questions for me. The problem I described did not drop off after letting her stay in the freshwater for 5 min. Is it possible that these things would now be dead but stay connected for a time? Or should they have dropped right out of her gills if they were some form of parasite? Have I eliminated the possibility that this is a parasite if they were supposed to drop off when dipped?

Thanks for taking the time to read this and I appreciate any help or advice you can give me.