A club for owners of Parrot Cichlids

AH, the black mark is probably due to the egg laying situation, its stressful work keeping guard etc, you dont need to do anything about the eggs, in a few days they should become fungused and the fish will eat them, in the event that they dont, just remove them yourself to prevent your water becoming fouled,it is extremely unlikely that any will hatch as males are sterile (something like 98%) I must say that 400 is quite a show!!!

two things springs to mind a) ich,--- is it a grey mark like a smudge or spots like salt, if spots like salt, ich, do some particle water changes until you can get treatment, or is it like a smudge, if so, read up on here all you can about black spot disease(not a disease at all) but a sign of stress, telling you that something isn't quite right,check your fish over to make sure that there's nothing else that you have missed, like closed fins or selling abdomen and is he swimming and eating well any white bits, first thing is to check your water quality, and post results, if water isn't right do partial water changes every other day , the black should go over around 2 weeks,make sure your filter is working,then look at your tank, have you added anything recently, new fish, decor,have you taken any decor out, do they have hiding places,have you changed the food, outside the tank, have you changed its position, has anyone been knocking on the tank, there are lots of things which upset them, it sounds like black spot, do the water changes, type "black spot"into our search box and read up on it,