My Fish Has A Bump!?!?!?!

[Tiff & Jerry]

Now my poor fishy has a bump on his side for some reason. My goldfish seems fine, except he has a bulge right behind his gills that is about the size of a dime. I have pics...the shinier part is the bump, my pics arent that good.
Do you think they are beating him up or what? It kind of looks like his scales might be ruffled... I have had them together for almost a year, and had no problems, there was nothing new recently, no change in anything in the cage...I hope someone knows what this bump is...Dong is my favorite gold fish!! (Ding is his twin..get it Ding Dong lol->that info is not really relevant to help him just thought you'd wanna know.)

He is the top goldfish...

[Sasami]

Male goldfish get a white bump on their gill covers but I'm assuming that's not what it is, right?

There's a good chance it's a bacterial infection. Rather then medicating right away I would first try to find out the source of the problem if there is one. Get the water tested for ammonia, nitrites, and nitrates. Do a water change, add some aquarium salt (that will help if this is actually being caused by parasites), and quarantine the fish if possible (since you don't want it spreading to the other guys). How often do you do water changes and how much do you change? Do you vacuum the gravel too? Since goldfish are extremely messy it's important that regular water changes are done and you'll want to have excellent filtration as well.

[22revgirl]

from my reaserch that is very normal to hapen to a male goldfish of coure i ma be wrong...