Disease and other illnesses

[Nerine]

I've had an unknown disease wipe out three fish...1 blue gourami, 1 white betta male and a blue betta female.
It started with the gourami...she developed a small lump behind her left gill, and literally in 1 day it was the size of a small marble. I knew she was going to die by the way she was acting, and just before she died, the entire area turned blood red, like something had burst inside her. Took pictures, documented, unfortuantly I had a cold and the smell of dead fish wasn't appealing and I couldn't cut her open to see what was inside!!
The very same day the gourami died, I was checking out the rest of the fish, and noticed that the male betta had a hole in the same side, left gill, only difference is that he had a hole and showed signs of dropsy on half his body. The female betta was swollen and belly up. Male got worse and died (also took pictures!) and I've asked a lot of people, and nobody could identify what was wrong with the two who developed lumps!
Anyone have any ideas? So far the rest of my fish seem fine...the rest of the bettas are healthy, my victorian haps are growing like weeds, and the other gourami and angel are both showing no signs of distress or illness.
Are there any good books out there with photos of diseases and parasites etc? I thought some sort of worm at first, but couldn't see any signs of a worm hanging out of the hole!
Baffled but happy it's not appearing anywhere else!
And anyone hear of a dwarf angel fish?? I bought an angel last year, and it's still the exact same size as when I bought it...the size of a loonie! Seems healthy, eats a lot, loves his krill and bloodworms!

[yellowtang]

hello there.
by what you have described to us .Your fish dying like that.
I believe the right term  of such desease is called "furunculosis"
which refers to swolen glands in the body of the fish,in other words
they are ulcers in the fish,they sometimes appear as small raised lumps,but as ulcer get worse so do the swelling. A good cause could be the food,not enough or they were not eating enough.

Another desease could be called "HOLE IN THE HEAD DESEASE"
which is usually found in discus and angels.

[Anubias]

The following is a good book. It is available through the OVAS library.

Handbook of Fish Diseases
by G. Untergasser and Dieter Untergasser, 1989

[Julie]

Hi Nerine - can you post some pictures?  What are you feeding?