# what are these spots?



## yogurtpooh (Jul 28, 2005)

I feed NLS cichlid formula as a staple and also include Dainichi and NLS thera A in their diet.
Some had them at a very young age before I bought them, but now I've noticed an increase, an even one spot on a duboisi. The spots only appear on one side of the fish. 
I do 40% weekly water changes. My dominant male has no spots[/img]


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## yogurtpooh (Jul 28, 2005)

anyone?? *** noticed my dominant duboisi developing similiar spots like these too...


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## fiupntballr (Jul 7, 2004)

*** seen these in all sorts of species of african cichlids and I often wonder if its some sort of disease or parasite.
I notice them on alot of LFS fish for some reason.

Hopefully someone will share their knowledge


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## flashg (Oct 5, 2007)

I think it is just healing scabs from fighting... Nip, chase... Bite. I've seen them come and go on my fish too. :wink:


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## yogurtpooh (Jul 28, 2005)

but they get bigger over time? 
and mine dont appear to be going at all. 
those pictures were not very recent and they still have em. 
it appears to be the scale, darkening up, and not any physical creature or whatever. 
i have yellow labs in there with them and they don't have anything at all.


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## IrkedCitizen (Apr 26, 2007)

There have been many questions asked about this already in this forum and more recently on a different forum. So instead of doing a search on here it was easier to get it from the other forum.

Take a read at what is being said here.


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## fiupntballr (Jul 7, 2004)

by the research i have done there is no definitive answer on these spots


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## lloyd (Aug 24, 2005)

here's a few observations i have noticed in my experience with black spot:
1) it affects other fish than tropheus. although most often seen with tropheus and gibberosa imports, i have also seen mbuna species, oto. tetrastigma, enantiopus melanogenys, and callochromis arrive with black spot. i am beginning to suspect 'WC' means 'with contamination'
2) both affected females, and females with no apparent markings, can produce fry with it. i believe, that even though the markings are not blatantly obvious on all, if some 'show' it, then most/all fish in that group 'carry' it. 
3) an importer once advised me to pick off the affected scales. although the black seemed restricted to scale, and the flesh beneath was clean of it, after a bit of experiment with this procedure, i concluded it best to simply pass over buying them AND buying from that importer. even after ridding the obvious, it continued to return in other/same fish within the group.
4) i have bought/sold 'more than enough' affected colonies, and have never witnessed a cleansing of it, by ANY means. reduction=yes. riddance=nope. it does not seem to be fatal, as many colonies are still around, but no keeper is pleased to own/show them. IMHO, importers need to be embarrassed sufficiently to pressure their exporters for a better cull.
5) there appears to be no market demand to identify, or assist with curing, affected fish. where are the aquarium pharmaceutical companies on this topic?


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## yogurtpooh (Jul 28, 2005)

any chance it'll spread on the entire body of the fish?


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## lloyd (Aug 24, 2005)

yogurtpooh said:


> any chance it'll spread on the entire body of the fish?


 i've never seen examples of black spot occurring to that extreme. your pictures certainly do not exemplify a worst case scenario. they look like good, healthy fish otherwise.
and on the topic of spreading... i've never seen similar markings on any fish off this continent. i would love to hear from any european members. are they familiar with it?


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## flashg (Oct 5, 2007)

Like I somewhat said above... When I bought my colony of moliros one of them had black all over its body!!! I tripped out hard on what is was, then it finally went away about 4-5 months later and I decided it was just scar tissue... This fish was the dither of the colony! I have seen spots come and go on malawi too! The only fish I have that it has never gone away on is a wild gold head comp and he has a black streak in his fin!


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## yogurtpooh (Jul 28, 2005)

well the reason im worried is that the fish in the posted pictures have much larger spots now and my duboisi who was spot free recently developed several and they appear to be getting bigger and bigger.


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## NorthShore (Feb 3, 2006)

My moops had the dreaded spots. They eventually mostly went away but I noticed when they did have them, stress seemed to make them stand out more.


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## Furcifer158 (Feb 16, 2008)

Like in the post for the houston whatever it was, It's the food that they were eating. If the trou is getting to much protien it gets these black spots. This is just what I notice with mine. I was feeding NLS and they started to get more and more of the spots so I switch them to just a good veggie flake food and they almost all went away.


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## lloyd (Aug 24, 2005)

Furcifer158 said:


> Like in the post for the houston whatever it was


 got a link?


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## Furcifer158 (Feb 16, 2008)

IrkedCitizen 
has it on his post


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## noddy (Nov 20, 2006)

I don't see IrkedCitizen on that thread at all. When I read it, it seems as though the general opinion is that water quality is the biggest contributor. As far as high protein foods go, I have read on other discussions that the oposite is a contributing factor, high amounts of spirulina. I'm not sure we will ever figure it out.


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## IrkedCitizen (Apr 26, 2007)

noddy said:


> I don't see IrkedCitizen on that thread at all. When I read it, it seems as though the general opinion is that water quality is the biggest contributor. As far as high protein foods go, I have read on other discussions that the oposite is a contributing factor, high amounts of spirulina. I'm not sure we will ever figure it out.


I didn't post on the houston fishbox thread. That was just what some other people had to say about the spots. There was another conversation on cichlid forum about the spots but instead of searching for it I went to the easier to find thread on HFB.

Lloyd below is my post on the previous page of this topic which contains the link.



IrkedCitizen said:


> There have been many questions asked about this already in this forum and more recently on a different forum. So instead of doing a search on here it was easier to get it from the other forum.
> 
> Take a read at what is being said here.


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## yogurtpooh (Jul 28, 2005)

if water quality is an issue then how come not all the fish have it?
I'm keeping yellow labs with my tropheus and the labs are spotless.


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## noddy (Nov 20, 2006)

Sorry, a little confusion on my part there.


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