African sick??

[mrhirsch]

I have a fish that is looking like something is wrong with his mouth. I have a 150 gallon tank with a lot of rock and sand for the bottom. The mouth of this fish looks like it is messed up a little. I observe the fish eating off of the rocks and picking up sand with his mouth, could this be the problem? Is it serious?

[Coler]

I find on mine that they often show a little bit of callous on their 'lips', more noticeable on some than others depending on colouration. It is basically either from a bit of lip locking or from nippling on rocks/substrate digging and entirely normal.

Have you observed serious aggression - lip locking ?

What kind of sand are you using - nothing too sharp.

Presuming it looks nothing like a cottony growth there and you don't have serious fights and/or e.g. crushed oyster shells in the substrate which could injure their mouths there is nothing to worry about.

[mrhirsch]

Thanks,

Sounds like my problem is not that serious. I have not seen lip locking but I have seen this fish moving the sand around a lot and biting on the rocks