What is in the mouth of my Neon tetra

The smallest of my Neon tetras looks like his mouth is open in an o shape and there is something red in his mouth ( it shows up black in the photo), months ago this fish had a massive growth on the side of his mouth, I looked at many photos of cotton mouth but it looked nothing like that, he started to isolate and then stopped eating so I cut the growth off of him, it was a translucent whiteish colour and inside it was what looked like a thin piece of rubber band, he has done great until recently, there's another 2 white growths but they are very small and hard to tell yet if its the same type of growth he had before or not.what I'm concerned about, is whats in his mouth,does anyone have any idea what it is.

 

I would expect it to be viral. The virus causes the tissues of the fish to grow this way. Whether you can cure it will depend on your abilities as a fishkeeper and the individual fish. I have had Neon Tetras with this problem, but luckily the growths all melted away gradually. Other people who have reported it found the growths grew larger until the fish was unable to eat. I worked on providing an environment as close to their natural one as possible.

 

I have set up a small hospital tank with what im hoping is the best enviroment for tetras, I have 3, one tetra has a problem with his tail the other looks ok but i cant leave him on his own so I intend to put all 3 in the new tank, Im having a problem with the ammonia level so until that's fixed I cant transfer them. If the problem is viral is there anything else I can do that will help.

 

I think the overwhelming need is for a healthy immune system. This tends to be suppressed when conditions are not to the fish's liking.

When you buy Neon Tetras the thing influencing their health the most is the condition the LFS has been able to maintain them in since receiving the fish. Healthy Neons can seem so robust you would not understand the problems with the other 50%.

 

Redshark, What I have learnt is that Tetras are not for beginners but Im learning since getting them especially about different reasons for growths on faces,what im still not sure about is the way his mouth looks mostly open and its red inside I cant tell if there's something in his mouth or its meant to be red inside, I never see the inside of the mouths of the other 2 to compare.