Here's two pics:
and
Sorry for low picture quality - they were taken on my phone. I can try to post better pics later.
What seems to be going on is a bit of damage to the barbels on one or two, which might be due to a small cichlid that was nipping at them. So I moved him out.
The more puzzling issue is some whitish patches on the surface of the skin. It's not ick, as I'm familiar with that - no salt-like raised cysts. Also the spots are not fuzzy like a cotton wool type infection. Instead, it's almost like the color is missing from those patches and/or the skin is rubbed slightly.
I've been keeping these catfish (8 of them) for about the last month in a 40 gallon breeder tank (36"x18"x18") with a fairly smooth but large grain pool filter sand as the substrate. Filter was a Tetra Whisper 60 rated around 300 gallons/hour, plus a large sponge filter. Their tankmates were some Cryptoheros cutteri cichlids, 2 banjo catfish, anda group of bronze cories.
I did notice that nitrates were high (around 80) due to less frequent water changes recently and perhaps overcrowding in the tank. To fix that, I've put a more powerful filter (to do a better job sucking up the waste), plus did several large water changes (30-50%) in the past week, plus moved out some of the fish to help with nitrates.
I also temporarily moved the bumblebees into their own tank (~7-8 gallons) with a sponge filter and heater so I could treat them separately if needed.
Any suggestions on what might be going on with them? Nitrates too high irritating their skin and then secondary infection of some kind?
