# Yellow Lab cichlid has red fins?



## Xbel76 (Jun 23, 2012)

Hi, my husband and I 'inherited' a 125g tank with mixed African cichlids at the end of March. We have 3 jewels, 2 yellow labs, what we think is a frontosa and 3 mixed/juvenile peacocks/hybrids/something. We are new to this and have been learning along the way. Big tank is fine, water is good, etc., but when we went on vacation back in April my sister was taking care of them and did not feed them as often as they were used to, and that seemed to kick off a big round of aggression for the male yellow lab. He attacked the female yellow lab and basically ate her tailfin, and left a few good chunks in her side. We stuck her in a breeder basket temporarily, then bought a ten gallon tank to use as a hospital tank. We treated her with melafix and some stuff called Fishkeeper that a big aquarium store in our town sells. Her fin grew back, but she is a pretty passive fish and we really didn't want to put her back in the big tank, basically I worked to hard to save the dang fish and it would really tick me off to have the jerks in the big tank eat her up. The fish has personality.  The problem now is that she has red by her fins (the side ones)...I think a lot of it came from being exposed to way too much ammonia, we didn't know what we were doing at first (and really still don't, but we're trying!). The tank was brand new and still cycling, and we were stuck between treating the fish and taking out the carbon in the power filter, and leaving it in but not treating her, etc. She also has small patches of white by her mouth, but they are not cottony and don't seem to grow, so I don't know if that is worth mentioning. I ended up buying a bigger power filter (rated up to 30 gallons) and with that in place for about a month, the water tests fine now. My question, is there something else I should be doing for this fish, or do we just have to wait it out now that the water/filter are working well and the tank is cycled? She's still eating pretty good, maybe breathes a little heavier than the others but doesn't seem distressed and doesn't hang out at the top of the tank, etc. Thanks!


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## brinkles (Jan 30, 2011)

You need to sort the stocking out, which means ID'ing the unknowns and rehoming at least the frontosa. She got chewed up because the male had only her to direct his "affection" towards, so you need more females. The white by her mouth might just be bite marks from trying to defend herself, it may not be anything. She may be breathing hard from the exposure to ammonia. He might need to go to "jail" for awhile when you return her to the main tank, and get some more. I think I have 9 yellow labs in my tank - 1 adult male, 4 adult females, and some youngsters.

A 125 is an awesome tank size - once you get everything worked out, it's going to look great!


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## Xbel76 (Jun 23, 2012)

I really don't think he's a frontosa...the LFS told me that's 'probably' what he is, but they were basing it off of a somewhat crappy cell phone picture. He's huge (maybe 6-7" fins to nose) and has no noticeable bump like the others I have seen. He's the boss of the tank due to size alone, but he's pretty mild and doesn't chew on anyone, just chases them out of his turf. I figure if he hasn't eaten anyone yet, he won't.

It was an established tank before we got them, the previous owners wanted to find them a new home and we were interested in fishkeeping, so it worked out. Right now the unnknowns are small and fast enough to keep away from anyone getting lippy. I tried to take some pics, will post them on the ID thread if I can figure it out. 

On getting more female labs- most of the places I have looked so far have tiny ones though, just a couple of inches long. I will keep looking!

The lab in the hospital tank, I finally googled enough to figured out what she probably has, been treating her with maracyn 2 for two days now and she is pale but the red is gone from one fin entirely and it is better on the other one. The water parameters are all pretty good still except for the ph, it's too low. If she gets better and I can find more females for the chompy one, hopefully all will be well.

Thanks for the reply!


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## Xbel76 (Jun 23, 2012)

Here's the red fin, will post the other side too for comparison:


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## Xbel76 (Jun 23, 2012)

Posted the big fish, he is evidently a male bumblebee. Need to take better pictures of the others, the little dudes are quick and I have no idea what I am doing.


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## brinkles (Jan 30, 2011)

It's hard to get pics of them! That's a good looking lab, too!
The "bumblebee", Ps. Crabro, can be a really nasty fish. Adults don't usually bother young fish that won't fit in their mouths, it's actually more adults that will be hard to add. What's the ph?


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## Xbel76 (Jun 23, 2012)

7.4 right now, still too low but I am not sure about adding any chemicals. It's such a small tank that even 1/8 of a teaspoon causes a big reaction. Is there something else I can do to get it a little higher?

So if I get a few young yellow lab females, even if they are a lot smaller than the male, should that make a difference in how he treats the female if I put her back in the big tank? She's almost done with the antibiotics, seems to be feeling better. She's swimming laps in that little tank and that makes me feel bad, but nor do I want her to get chewed on. Dilemma!

The bumblebee is a hoss...he chases the others frequently, but as long as they keep their distance he doesn't actually bite anyone. He seems to be content with just bossing everyone around.


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## brinkles (Jan 30, 2011)

7.4 is more tolerable than trying to "improve" your water by adding things - I would change the substrate to aragonite or crushed coral, and if you have a canister filter, fill one of the baskets with it. It won't really raise the PH fast enough to notice, but it should prevent it from dropping.

Fish that are too small to eat, but not sexually mature, are usually ignored by the adults. I usually get fish that are 1"- 2" because they're cheap, and remove the extra males once they start to mature (and fight). Unfortunately, your male would ignore them and continue to pick on the lone female. If you get adult females, you could put him in the spare tank for a couple weeks, let the girls get comfortable, and add him back in. They're going to cost a few bucks if you can even find a store that can sex them.

I hate to say this, but the challenge to keeping cichlids is meeting their social needs. I kept tanks of all male fish, all different species, for years. It looked good, but I constantly had to remove chewed up fish as they grew. After I got my most recent tank and started doing some more research, I decided to keep breeding groups, and it's really been working out great. I just get 6-8 juveniles of any new species then sell/trade the extra males. Sometimes I keep fry from the male/harem group, grow them to sexable size, then add to my stock, and sell or trade the rest. You have room for 5-6 species of 30-40 individuals in your tank! It's going to take some time and effort before you have groups of adults set up, but it's worth it!


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## Xbel76 (Jun 23, 2012)

Yeah, that's what I thought...I had to stir stuff around in there because the gravel is getting gross and added some water clarifier and her fin turned red again and she started acting funny. I think I'm just doing too many things to stress her out right now and need to back off. There is just regular gravel in there at the moment, and we're using an Aqua Clear 30 power filter with ammonia rocks in there right now instead of the carbon one because of the antibiotic. I just hate that we caused so much of the problem from not knowing what the heck we were doing (at all) at first, the big tank is pretty easy to take care of because it's established and has a really good system, etc. I'll talk to the bigger fish store and see what labs they have, maybe I can sorta split the difference and get some in between tiny and huge. Thanks for the help!


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## Xbel76 (Jun 23, 2012)

OK, so tank update: We found just one more semi-large yellow lab in a mixed cichlids tank at our LFS. The new one is smaller than the other two, but not so small that they are in danger of being eaten, she/he is maybe an inch smaller. We also picked up an electric blue hap and a blue dolphin. The original yellow lab that ate the other one's fin was being a total jerk to the new ones and had the new yellow cornered, etc. actually biting, not just chasing. I had nowhere else to put him so currently he's in timeout in a hospital basket in the big tank, since the formerly injured yellow lab was in the 10 gal. quarantine tank still. We put him in timeout this morning. Not knowing what else to do since he was being so aggressive towards everyone smaller than him (the only one he left alone was the bumblebee, nobody bothers him, lol) we acclimated the formerly injured yellow lab that was in the 10 gal and put her back into the big tank, figuring on putting the aggressive lab in the quarantine tank. We just put her in there, and she is doing the weird shaking thing I saw in another post, just around the new yellow, and is circling the new yellow but not attacking, etc. She's not doing the shake thing when she's swimming on her own. I just don't know what to do long-term with these dang fish. I don't know whether to put the aggressor in the 10 gal. which means I would have no hospital tank, or try to re-home him since he's the only one causing problems. Or I don't know if now that the formerly injured yellow is back in the big tank, if it would cause him to settle back down since there would be a total of three labs swimming around? I am still so new at this and don't know what the heck to do, any input appreciated.


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## Xbel76 (Jun 23, 2012)

OK, so looking at the previous posts I am going to attempt to answer my own question...dang fish soap opera...haha. I think we are going to temporarily move the aggressive lab into the 10 gal for a few weeks to let the formerly injured lab and the new lab (most likely females, they look exactly the same while he has more black on his fins, etc) to settle down, and then try him out back in the big tank. I think eventually we are going to try to get a 30 gal tank to put a few other things in, so we'll have more options and still have a hospital tank. At least the 10 gal is enough to let the aggressive lab live relatively comfortably for a few weeks until everyone else settles in.

OK, so our 125 gal tank is currently:

One adult male bumblebee
3 jewels (one male, two females)
One peacock cichlid of some sort
2 yellow labs, most likely female
one blue dolphin
one electric blue hap
2 mixed mutt small silver stripey cichlids that have yet to be identified

The formerly injured lab's fin is still red, but I am thinking it is permanent because it's only on the one side and she's been through both anti-fungal and antibiotic treatments. She is acting otherwise fine, so fingers crossed. She seems to be realllly happy having some room to swim after being in the 10 gallon for 3 months. That alone was worth putting her back into the big tank. I am hoping the extended timeout for the aggressive one will make him change his ways.


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