Sick bristlenose boy

Can anyone tell me what this poor boy is suffering from? I have never seen a fish like this. I first noticed him when he didn't swim away from me during a water change today. He has been fine along with several others I bought as babies and have grown to this size. He is the only one like this. He seems to be eating.
This poor fish has now passed away.

Id say Bloat and he doesnt look well atoll, id say you 99% you will loose him, my oldest male brown died to the exact same thing everything i tried did not cure him.....i would use esha2000 if you can get hold of some from ebay, works a treat normally......

There's a post HERE about Bloat, hope it helps

Thanks that was interesting. He isn't showing quite those symptoms. I have seen bloat before and he isn't sort of blown up but has individual swellings and patches of red on his outer surface. May be that's how bloat affects a BN due to their different anatomy. Tried to get esha2000 in LFSs (looked on website) as I thought this would be quicker than ebay but cant find a stockist so will have to be ebay. He hasn't moved much. Poor chap.

june wrote:

Thanks that was interesting. He isn't showing quite those symptoms. I have seen bloat before and he isn't sort of blown up but has individual swellings and patches of red on his outer surface. May be that's how bloat affects a BN due to their different anatomy. Tried to get esha2000 in LFSs (looked on website) as I thought this would be quicker than ebay but cant find a stockist so will have to be ebay. He hasn't moved much. Poor chap.

could well be septicemia...........i will try and find the post i had with this somewere....

Curby wrote:

june wrote:

Thanks that was interesting. He isn't showing quite those symptoms. I have seen bloat before and he isn't sort of blown up but has individual swellings and patches of red on his outer surface. May be that's how bloat affects a BN due to their different anatomy. Tried to get esha2000 in LFSs (looked on website) as I thought this would be quicker than ebay but cant find a stockist so will have to be ebay. He hasn't moved much. Poor chap.

could well be septicemia...........i will try and find the post i had with this somewere....

Taken from the A-Z of FISH DISEASES

Septicemia:
A fairly rare to common in all tropical and coldwater fish. It is caused by bad tank
conditions and is very hard to cure if not impossible. This condition can follow on
from skin infections such as fin rot or may occur independently as a result of dirty
conditions. Bacteria enter the blood stream and circulate through the tissues
causing inflammation and damage. Blood vessel and heart tissue damage result
in leakage of fluids into the abdomen, producing dropsy. Inflamed blood vessels
in the skin and at fin bases stand out.
Bacterial Hemorrhagic Septicemia can be diagnosed by red streaking of the fins
and body and once this disease progresses, ulcerations and body sores start to
appear. There is significant loss of appetite, lethargy, loss of motor functions in
the later stages of the disease.

Things To Look Out For
Reddening at the bases of the fins
Small hemorrhages around the eyes
Very dull, listless behaviors
Lack of appetite

Treatment. Seek vetinary guidance. The vet will prescribe antibiotics. I
recommend using Oxytetracycline Hydrochloride Powder obtained from a vet to
cure this disease. Check the aquarium for the cause and eliminate it.


.

He seems slightly better today and is feeding from the sides of the filter. The red patches are not quite so bright and have not been on the fins or eyes at all. I do my water changes regularly and have been doing extra as I added fish recently. I have also bought a new external pump which is running alongside the original one. I never seem to eliminate the nitrates completely although nitrite is nil. No other fish affected.

Wow !! He sure does look uncomfortable..
It could be simple constipation or it could be something more sinister, like cancerous lumps..
I think if he were mine, I would have him out of the tank & into a hospital tank until he showed more improvement...
http://animal-world.com/encyclo/fresh/information/Diseases.htm#Constipation

Best of luck, I hope you can sort out what it is he is suffering from..

Whatever this is it is rampaging through all my bristle nose. I have 5 left and 3 showing same signs. It starts with small lumps behind the interpercular spines and then further lumps down the body and on the nose. I have noticed some fish were lethargic and some carried on as normal eating.
I'm absolutely gutted with all this.
I've not been able to find out
a) what it is or
b) where it came from
c)how to treat it and
d)when I could consider the tank clear of it.
No other types of fish are affected so far, including Doras and corys.

The babies are still in their cave, quite active. I have done a massive water change for them today in hope of diluting anything dangerous. Dadhas now succumbed so he's back in the main tank.

did you do a good gravel vac??
as BN's are bottom feeders they pick up most of there problems from the substrate were all the crap lies stagnent....sometimes you can have a great ph great zilch nitrites but your water can also be toxic in other ways....test your tap water before you add anything to your tank....
also you havent posted any test results yet or a picture of your setup to give us an idea of whats causing this....the more info we get the more we can help.....you clearly have a BIG problem and iam now worried you will loose all your BN's before the week is out......

do not use test strips as in my eye's they are useless, buy the good stuff....then post your results asap....

Im with curby on this! Seems to me there is a big issue here and needs to be delt with ASAP or more fish will fall to it.

First thing we need is more info on the set up...including pics, size, filters, plants...everything and of course as much on the water as possible, pH, nitrate, nitrite, ammonia, etc.

I would look at getting some broad scale antibiotics in there pronto. i would start with some melafix at the recommended dosage, if nothing else it may stop the others from becoming infected. I would also get some multi-cure type stuff. this is another broad scale antibiotic but is much more powerful than melafix. This needs to be run at half dose as the bristlenose will die at a full dose. its generally green or blue and turns the tank nice colours but will stain things so be careful!

Going off the original image i dont think its bloat as the swelling is too high on the body so i would look at increasing the protein in their diet a little bit. a bit of flake food on top of their usual will do as this helps the body fight infection.

Oh NO. sorry to hear you are having more problems with this issue...
Sounds awful...Best of luck...

A few days has passed and although there is one female suffering from the recent symptoms she hasn't worsened over the last few days and I haven't seen any more fish with it. The swellings appear in pairs starting near the head and work down the body in pairs. I am treating them with a course of JBL Esha 2000 and JBL EXIT. Prior to this I had done very large daily water changes and rinsed the top layer of both filters. I took a picture of the latest victim to my LFS and two opinions were a virus or bacteria. I haven't posted any water results as changes are so large and frequent. I hope by posting this someone else may recognise it or maybe know how to react if they see it starting.

Meanwhile the babies, in another tank, have been emerging from their cave beginning 5 days ago and there are quite a lot out now but not all out yet. I have bought them a new sponge filter & airstone in the hope they don't get ill. They were actually laid in the tank where the fish are now sick but I can't see what else I can do as my LFS said not to medicate them. Also doing quite large water changes for them too. They look great. I think there's about 30 at a guess. Some are dark and some lighter. How exciting to see them mature. Their tank has a good growth of algae and I have given them cucumber which I have seen a couple eating.
Is there anything else I should be doing for them?

Sounds like you have it all under control, on both fronts

just one thing i will mention. I fell victim to this last time i had a nasty sweep through my tanks. I did too many water changes and sent the tank into a mini cycle causing the ammonia to spike. this lead to more deaths of the really young fry make sure you use plenty of Prime as this will reduce the effects of the water changes on the filters as well as detoxify the ammonia that might get produced

good luck

Glad to hear that the young ones seem OK, if they had been exposed to any yirus/bacteria at such an early stage they would have succumbed to it very quickly.

As Doug said you're probably wiser to treat the fry tank as you would normally, but just moniter it for any adverse signs.

I'm not sure but I thought Esha 2000 worked as a three day dose, large water changes may nullify the effect. Perhaps someone who's used it might no more about it.

To clarify: In the main tank I did large water changes until I could get the Esha 2000. Today is day 2 for that and I'm not doing water changes for a few days. It's all status quo as in one sick fish, no better no worse, and no others showing symptoms.

Babies are looking fine. I have counted 25-30 with just one albino from two unrelated brown parents. Some are still in the cave while some are swimming around so they are difficult to count properly. Yesterday they ate almost a whole slice of cucumber.

you will be amazed at home much cucumber they can consume! My fish room needs a whole cucumber a day, a full half of it going into the grow out tank!

Yesterday was the third and last day of the Esha treatments. No changes that I've noticed. One poorly female still looks the same but I did see her feeding today on the pellets which she hasn't done for a few days. No others apparently affected.

How long do I leave the tank after treatment before doing a water change. I have been rinsing the top layer of both of the filters.

Thanks everyone for all the advice. It has really helped to talk with like minds.

The last poorly girl died yesterday. She never looked any worse and was feeding etc but I never knew what to do to help her. I have 5BNs in the same tank who never succumbed to this and all seem well. I wonder how long to wait to introduce a new girl to my 2 boys. I thought about a month or 3-4 pwcs