# Yellow Lab turning black



## sprint_9 (May 4, 2004)

*** recently ran into some problems with a couple of my labs, two of the four are turning black, one really bad. It is a 29g with the 4 labs being the only fish in there, and from what I have seen aggression is very minimal. The black seemed to come after a water change and Im thinking my PH is to low for him to be comfortable but Im not sure. All I have for testing is just a 5 in 1 strip and everything else checks out decent except for PH so Im leaning to that being the problem but wanted to check here first for some other possible cause as 2 of the fist look great and are active, the other doesnt look good but is very active (female I think cause its a runt too) and the other has the black and just hangs out in the rocks. The fish are all 3+ years old.

*** also noticed that one side of my tank gets a little sun and the sand is green against the glass, this seemed normal for it getting some sun, but I noticed tonight that it has some holes in it. I would describe them as looking like there is ants in my sand but I doubt that is possible, but it looks like those ant farms the way the sand is formed. Anyone have any ideas on that?


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## cichlidaholic (Dec 7, 2005)

It sounds like they are stressed.

What IS the ph?

The strips are really unreliable. I would pick up some liquid reagent test kits, at least for ammonia, nitrite, nitrate and ph...

What is your normal tank maintenance routine?

This tank is on the small side for housing mbuna, and without knowing the sex ratios of the group that you have, this could be your problem, as well. A subdominant male eventually gets tired of being subdominant, especially in smaller areas. Aggression can slip past you quite easily - we don't always see it.

I would focus on water quality, and the potential need to remove extra males and replace them with females. Long term, I would focus on having 4 females and one male in this tank size. My daughter had a set up identical to this for years that worked out very well, with minimal stress.

I don't know what the algae problem could be, but I would try to keep the sun off the side of the tank so much...You can either extend your background around the side, or close the blinds so that it's not such a problem.


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