Lumps On Bristlenose Catfish

[TLSquiggle]

I’m not a big time fish keeper, so I’m not the most educated beyond the basics, but I do love my fish and am worried about one of them. Can any experts tell me what’s wrong with my Bristlenose? He’s not acting any differently, he just suddenly has these lumps on his head. I’ve already asked on a Bristlenose catfish forum but after a few days and no responses I’m still searching for some answers, google hasn’t provided any leads either.

Please help?
 

 
Tank size: 50L
pH: 7.6
ammonia: 0ppm
nitrite: 0ppm
nitrate: 20ppm (recently had trouble with snail infestation, it was up around 80 but I'm working to reduce it, is usually 0ppm)
tank temp: coming into summer I’m struggling to keep it in the ideal 24-26C, it’s approx 28C most days no matter what I do (iceblocks & fan don’t work)
 
Fish Symptoms: Lumps on head. No change in behaviour and nothing else I can see.
 
Volume and Frequency of water changes: 10-20% weekly/fortnightly (did do a full clean about a month back to eradicate snail population, I believe I kept some original water though)
 
Tank inhabitants: 3 Adult BN catfish (1 male, 2 female), 1 fry BN catfish (missed it when removing eggs *faceplam*), 3 Kuhli Loaches (recently introduced).
 
Chemical Additives or Media in your tank: None?
 
Recent additions to your tank (living or decoration): 3 Kuhli Loaches (added the day I discovered the lumps). Added a few aquarium decorations, from pet store. There is a reptile cave in the tank but it's been there for as long as the fish (couple of years).
 
Exposure to chemicals: Again, I don’t think so?

 

[nic1]

hi,
this can be anything really, thats probably why theres been no response from other forums, it can be bacterial, viral, infection and even tumors or abcess. I guess the only way to find out is by skin samples, ive never seen anything like that before.
have you tried using salt to treat him?
try and take a picture everyday to look for any changes... if they look to be shrinking it may just be an abcess or infection, if still growing after salttreatment then I would think about medicating with an anti bacterial med and see if that helps.
if you can qt him as loaches are scaleless and dont  do well with salt.
Also do they have driftwood?
thanks

 

[TLSquiggle]

Thanks for the reply Nic.
I'm unfortunately unable to quarantine him for treatment, and I also don't know the first thing about how to do a salt treatment. I haven't done anything yet because I only noticed the lumps on the weekend (they don't appear to be changing size at all) and finding any information about what the lumps might be has been difficult.
At the moment I'm just trying to get the Nitrates back down, since they've never been this high before. If he gets worse I'll find a way to treat him but he doesn't seem sick at all in any other way, I'm hoping whatever it is it's benign? None of the other fish have any symptoms either, what are the odds that this might be deadly?

Yep, they have a big log of bog wood that they've had since I got them a few years back.

 

[nic1]

Hi, well salt treatment is usually 5TBS for 5gallons, but you will have to halve the dose and use 1TBS for 10gallons (45 litres) as you cant quarantine him-just do this once after a water change and then do a water change as normal a week later-I suggest you do a 60% water change after the salt treatment, mix the salt with water from the aquarium in a beaker then add it to the tank, make sure its dissolved properly before you add it.
 
I've just read that you have a 50Litre tank, is this correct?
Your fish will need a bigger tank as you are quite over stocked, bristle nose will need a lot more space now there are 3 loaches, and the loaches are best in groups of 5, if you cant get one quite soon I would do 40-50% water changes weekly rather than fortnightly.
 
Hope this helps?
 
Thanks.

Oh by the way, the high nitrate is probably because of overcrowding/the growing bristle nose/extra bio load from new fish-
snails and shrimp dont add to the bio load of the aquarium and wont drive up nitrate levels, this can be rectified by the water changes, I usually do my weekely water changes on a Thursday as its a quiet day for me and theres no excuse