# My Yellow lab looks dirty...



## bboyspook (Aug 14, 2009)

My yellow lab looks dirty around the mouth area and on the side of his body. I was wondering.. is there any way to clean him? or what it could be to make him look that dirty? the water is cleaned once every week. its a 55G. with him and a couple other yellow labs, but he is the only one that looks dirty...


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## non_compliance (Dec 4, 2008)

Yeah, just take him out and scrub him with some mmild soap and water.. LoL.. just kidding, DO NOT do that..

it may be a number of things... but Labs are known to get a "beard"... could be stress... sickness... maturity... getting beat up or dominated by another fish... Could just be a genetic thing...

I would keep a close eye for missing scales... clamped fins... or if it starts suspending vertically... (head up tail down) or other problems... but otherwise, he's probably fine.

I used to have 2 in a tank, and one was beating on the other... he started to get that "dirty" look... I took him out and put him in my other tank, and he was fine.. it was a stress thing.


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## natalie559 (Dec 6, 2007)

non_compliance said:


> I used to have 2 in a tank, and one was beating on the other... he started to get that "dirty" look... I took him out and put him in my other tank, and he was fine.. it was a stress thing.


That's been my experience too. The sub dom developed a dirty look due to stress. I think other than stress the most likely reason would be genetics.


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## MalawiLover (Sep 12, 2006)

Many labs will exhibit barring, bearding and "dirtyness" to varrying dgrees that fluctuate with emotion. Unfortunatley it is often a sign of poor quality breeding, though even some very high quality (solid gold all the ine, wide black marks in the fins) withh get a "5 o'clock shadow" when feeling particularly dominant or aggressive.


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