# Mbuna, White Spot on Bottom Lip



## LTrue (Feb 15, 2009)

Hi all! 
I've looked through other discussions regarding white spots but this doesn't seem to be those tiny little white spots indicative of ick. This is a larger patch, almost like his color wore off in this tiny spot on his bottom lip. 
He is a Melanochromis Johanni, about 2 1/2-3" long. Tank is healthy, levels are good. He is eating, digging and social. Everything seems very normal except for this white spot. We've had him (& the tank) for almost a year now. [/img]
Any ideas? Here is a pic. 









If I can go off on one little rant while I'm at it. Until last week I had no idea exactly what kind of cichlids we had. Plain & simple our lfs sold them to us based upon color with no explanations...etc. Not their fault, we should have done more research. We have been feeding blood worms maybe once a week & cichlid flakes daily. Not until the other day did I have any idea that these were not good for our fish! We were at a different CHAIN lfs and they HIGHLY recommended frozen beefhearts for a treat for our mbunas. I didn't realize that they cannot have these either until about 20 minutes ago. This is a pet store! They should know better right? Don't get me wrong, ultimately it's our responsibility to be educated and learn what we can but shouldn't the LFS be a little more cautious about their information? 
Okay, I'm done ranting now. A big shout out to all of the fabulous cichlid forum folks though, you guys have been wonderful. THANK YOU!


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## BRANT13 (Feb 18, 2009)

probably was just a little damaged from a dominace battle...locking jaws brobably causeed the damage on the mouth...it will get better if it already hasnt


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## morningsky (Apr 22, 2008)

Is the area protruding?

My peacock gets areas around his mouth from time to time that look like his color is rubbed off. He fights (lip locking) occasionally with my Ruby Red. I usually add salt or Melafix to prevent an infection.

As far as feeding I have found out from this forum that it is better to feed one quality food.
With Mbuna you would want a lower protein percentage. I feed mine NLS and my fry eat spirulina flakes.

I can't remember which Moderator said this but it stuck with me. The treats are not needed by the fish, they are mostly for us. So we feel good about offering them some variety.

Good luck.


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## cichlidaholic (Dec 7, 2005)

It looks like he's been scraping algae off of something. If it isn't cottony or fuzzy looking, I wouldn't worry about it.

You don't want to feed your fish ANY proteins from warm blooded animals...And yes, the LFS should know better. :thumb:


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## 55gal (Jan 19, 2009)

I found that most, not all of the employees at the LFS really arenâ€™t that knowledgeable. This one person scared me when I mentioned about cycling using ammonia, he said he never heard of it before, now I try to avoid him

The best place I found if you need any question answered, is in this form


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