Pictus EMERGENCY!!! Please help!!!

[MissRuthless]

Hello everyone, this is my first post here and I am desperate to save my poor little baby pictus. Some jerk at Walmart sold me four of them saying that they only require 5g and would get along great with my community tank (which is full of neons and other pictus sized snacks). I jumped into fishkeeping without a lick of research and now I'm trying to learn as much as possible while shuffling everyone around to try to accommodate the massive amount of fish they sold me for the two 10g's I started with.
I bought a 40g tank when I realized how overstocked I was, so that's where the pictus crew lives now. Today's water test showed ammonia and nitrite at 0 and nitrate at around 10ppm (same for the last week), ph is usually right around 7.0 but I just added a piece of Malaysian driftwood which has lowered it a tiny bit. Temp is around 74, my heater is pretty ghetto and has no thermostat so that's where it stays. Two aquaclear HOB filters and two air stones at opposite sides of the tank. Substrate is basic gravel, I replaced the rougher old stuff when I set up the larger tank cuz I have 7 cories in there as well. The tank has just finished cycling within the past week, so I've gone from 20% daily water changes to 25-50% twice weekly using a gravel siphon. No additives in the water except jungle start right during water changes (and I used TSS to cycle). Tank mates are 2 young angels, a dwarf gourami, rainbow shark, 4 neon tetras, 4 glowlight tetras, 3 female platies, 7 young cories, and 3 other young pictus cats.
Now on to the issue... When I first put them in the tank the water conditions were subpar and they freaked out, swimming erratically up and down the walls and all that, and somewhere in the panic this little guy bent one of his largest barbels. I have another with broken barbels that are growing back fine, but this one bent backwards right at the base and just dangled there. This was four days ago and not only is it still attached and hanging, the other one is bent in the same spot. They both just kinda trail beside him when he swims. I had put him in my smaller tank last night (tiger barbs and a few grumpy tetras) thinking he'd benefit from being out of the way of the other cats, but this morning he looked way worse so I put him back in the main tank. Now he has bloody spots on his cheeks (not like ammonia poisoning, like irritation on his face from the barbel issue) and it seems like he's running into things trying to rub the broken barbels off, and randomly shaking his head. The skin near his face looks like it's peeling, almost like you can see scales coming off except that he doesn't have scales. It's becoming very clear that he's in pain, the barbels are freaking him out and possibly even messing with his equilibrium, he won't eat, and it seems like he's just trying to stay close to the others for comfort but they don't want him in their hideouts so they chase him off. He's been hanging with the rainbow shark in his cave, but he's also restless and won't stay still for too long.
At this point I'm thinking the best thing would be to catch him and snip the broken barbels off with a sterilized scissor. Everything I've read advises against it, but they're not coming off on their own, they're hurting him badly, and his condition is steadily declining. It seems like the only thing I could do to make him comfortable and hopefully get him on the road to recovery. I know it's not an ideal solution, but I can't think of anything else and I'm afraid he'll die if I don't do something.
If any catfish fanatics out there have any thoughts or ideas, I'd be grateful for anything you have to say on the matter. I've been sitting in front of the tank for hours, I'm so worried about him I can't make myself walk away. To cut or not to cut?? Thank you in advance to anyone who has any advice to give.

[DutchFry]

do not cut his barbels please... they're the most sensitive parts of its body... could you perhaps upload some photo's so we can determine what's wrong with the fish?
And also, sick fish need rest and will react badly to handling and transferring from one to another tank. best idea for now is to transfer all its tankmates to another (temporary) tank so it can get some rest.

For skin issues, treatment with Melafix is almost always the way to go. and if it doesn't help the fish it won't kill it either.

[naturalart]

I agree with DutchFry, please don't cut the barbels off. They are highly important to the fish and more importantly, I don't think the barbels are the problem. Sounds like your fish has some disease and thats causing the scratching. You really need to post pics too get the best help.

[MissRuthless]

Thank you guys for responding, and I'll try to take some pics right now. I did end up cutting them last night, I couldn't watch him freak out anymore. I know how sensitive they are, but they were already mangled and dangling off his face by a thread making it impossible for him to eat or even swim straight. It seems like this may be the exception; it was a horrible thing to have to do, but I took him in my hands as gently as I could and snipped them at the part where they were broken, and as soon as I put him back in the tank his behavior started to improve.
I did think that perhaps he was flashing at first, but it looked more like the nerves in the broken barbels were tweaking him out. He wasn't rubbing his body on anything, just his nose almost like they do when they dig in the gravel for food. He is doing much better now, the red spots are fading already and he's finally started to eat again. He was also doing the angry pictus thing where they open and close their mouth over and over, and he's stopped that as well. Right now I'm sitting here trying to get a photo, but he's apparently got his energy back cuz he won't stay still for me.
How do I post photos? HTML or bb code?

[MissRuthless]

Also, I did want to treat him with tea tree oil (active ingredient in melafix) but I've read that it can be harmful to labyrinth fish. I was going to put the gourami in my other tank so I could treat the main tank, but that's where I keep the tiger barbs and other a**hole fish that nip fins and whatnot so I was worried about them nipping at his super long, thin delicate ventral fins. I thought of setting up a spare 10g as a hospital tank, but I didn't want to stress him by separating him from the others and taking him away from his hiding spots, so I'm hoping keeping the water conditions perfect will be sufficient to facilitate healing. The redness was all over the left side of his face last night, from mouth to eye, and now it's almost gone. I'll try and post pics now.

[MissRuthless]

Also, in reply to DutchFry, I would love to kick everyone else out of his tank until he's healed, but I don't have another suitable tank set up. I do have a 55g that I planned on setting up for the pictus when they get a bit bigger (or when they start eating my neons more often) but I don't have a big enough filter for it yet, and I also wanted to reseal it before using it since it's pretty old (mfg. date is 1994!).
He seems to be doing well, he's back to hanging out with the spotted cories (I think he thinks they're related), eating whatever he can find, cruising around the tank periodically and then resting in his favorite cave (the frog). I know it's generally a horrible idea to cut their barbels, but I think in this case it was the right thing to do. He is not scratching or rubbing on things, shaking his head, or acting stressed or abnormal anymore.
Before anyone reams me out, I want to state again that I waited four days without interfering, hoping the barbels would fall off on their own. They didn't, and his behavior and appearance just got worse and worse, to the point that it was impossible to deny that they were hurting him and making it hard for him to function. I imagine having your sensory organs dragging on the ground behind you must be a horrible form of sensory overload, at least that's what it looked like.

[naturalart]

Nature once again shows us all what we know, not much. Sounds like you lucked out this time. It really horrified me that you were contemplating the cuts. Whiskers are primary sense organs for catfish. But it sounds like the barbels may have been infected. These new 'wounds' may be giving the fish a chance to heal up properly. Once the redness abates, I think you can feel safe. That would indicate that the infection has subsided (catfish have powerful abilities to heal). I'm just hoping the whiskers will grow back, in my eyes this will make it a 'true' catfish again and make its life much easier.

Also, pictus cats are relatively gregarious, so hopefully it'll be welcomed back into the school since it isn't stressing anymore. Please keep us updated. Congrats on 'saving' your catfish.

[MissRuthless]

Thank you for your thoughts naturalart. I do feel that I got extremely lucky with him; when I first posted here I was 99% sure I was gonna lose him, and while I was considering cutting them I had no idea how I'd go about it, or if I'd succeed or accidentally stab him in the eye with my scissor.

I'm happy to report that the redness is completely gone as of today. He's back to eating normally as well - I used to think they'd eat themselves to death (is that possible?) but now it's relieving to see his bloated belly all stuffed full of shrimp pellets. He's still hiding a bit more than usual, which I think is partly because he's still a bit weak and trying to heal his wounds, and partly because all the pictus in the tank are starting to get territorial toward one another and he doesn't have the energy to fight with the others.

I just put a second half-dose of melafix in the tank a few minutes ago. There's a bit of white fuzzy infection at the tip of one of the cut barbels, but the melafix seems to be working as it's half the size today that it was last night. The scaly/flaky things on his sides are almost gone too. I think I'll keep medicating for the next few days and update y'all as the healing progresses. Thanks everyone for responding!!

[naturalart]

If its whiskers don't grow back be prepared for the possibility of this fish to remain the "odd-man-out". Not only do catfish sense food with their whiskers, they also communicate and sense 'others' around them, with them. It may not be able to communicate sufficiently/correctly with the other cats to be completely comfortable with them and vis-versa. But hopefully, things will work out.