# My Frontosa (Kipili) lips are white and flakey?



## char.rodriguez (May 29, 2008)

2 of my frontosa have been fighting, the one that I am worried about has been hiding and I noticed that the area around the mouth has turned white and flakey. I read that lip locking may be sings of mating and also could be males fighting over space. I have seperated them in different tanks until the one heals. Is this a mistake? They are about a 1 year 1/2 old, the bigger appears to be a male, the smaller one could go either way. Let me know what I should do.

Thanks


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## chago (Mar 4, 2008)

well.... in my case, not only males fight, but females tend to be as much as agresive as males... just a while ago a couple of them locked lips.... and i am 100% sure they are both females (they've held before).

don't worry, you can try and change decor a bit at night, so the territories vary and agresiveness decreases, also frequent water changes help


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## lloyd (Aug 24, 2005)

lip locking is common, among both males and females, but you are correct to separate any fish when damage becomes excessive. reintroduction of the weaker fish can sometimes be impossible. especially, if the more aggressive fish is allowed to stay, and confirm it's territory. HTH.


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## char.rodriguez (May 29, 2008)

Okay so I did good but chances are the fish has to go? I will tell you the tank is a bunch more relaxed. None of the Fronts are fighting anymore, I knew the time would come when I would have to pull some of them out, 9 fronts in a 125 gal is a bit much. Thanks for the quick response.


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## lloyd (Aug 24, 2005)

char.rodriguez said:


> ...so I did good but chances are the fish has to go?


 which fish goes where?  
first, i would sex the two fish involved. if both are males, then pick the one you like best and put the other up for adoption. if only one is male, i would Q the male until lip damage is healed (approx. 2 weeks in decent conditions), then reintroduce that male back to the group and watch closely. if both are too young to sex, then i would tolerate the situation until one of the previously mentioned options becomes apparent. HTH.


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## cichlidgirl1 (Sep 17, 2007)

I would first check to see if you have your tank setup to properly manage aggression. I had mine set incorrectly and had fighting all the time. When i had my burundi (6 of them) in my 135 they were fine then started fighting as they matured. I had 2 large rockpiles made out of small rocks (not good for caves ) and one large cave. I lowered aggression by removing all caves and rockpiles totally and put larger single rocks here and there around the tank (about 7 of them). With no caves there were very few fights. I also selected rocks that had a high profile so that fish could get out of site of the alpha. I have found two options work best : no caves at all , just single large rocks or more good sized caves than fish. I had 3 or 4 more caves than i had fish. That also worked but not quite as well as no caves.

In my new big tank i have one super sized cave in the center (the center is about a foot talland 8 inches wide on the bottom ) the rest are all single rocks . i have very little fighting and have 11 mpimbwe and 7 burundi in there. (the mpimbwe are still real small but growing fast, no problems so far) I check daily for signs of fighting and have not seen the tell tale nipped fins or split tails etc.. I have seen the alpha chase one suspected male but other than that its just normal front interactions.


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