Frontosa with Mbuna ??

  • We are currently upgrading MFK. thanks! -neo
N

new2natives

Fire Eel
MFK Member
Dec 1, 2007
1,266
6
68
ohio
I've heard and read conflicting stories about keeping frontosa in communities with mbuna?
I know some people do it, but others recommend a species only tank for fronts.

Any comments?


The fronts i have are 4x 5-8" and in a tank by themselves, and all my mbuna (~75 @ 2-4") are growing out, but eventually im thinking something along the lines of a 150-180g with some rockwork, caves, and driftwood with 60-70% of the tank being open swimming space
 
I've never kept more than one front at a time, but have heard that extremely active Malawi fish (peacocks and mbuna, some large haps) may tweak them out a bit and throw them off the breeding game.
 
Fronts with mbuna works fine as long as the fronts are bigger so the aggressive mbuna cant bother the slow moving fronts. Alot of people say theyre too skittish to be kept with mbuna but ive seen it work plenty of times. one thing to keep in mind is that fronts need some protein in their diet while the mbuna are vegetarian, so id give more of a mixed diet than most people do if you wanna combine the two
 
It's fine if you're not trying to raise any of the frontosa fry, however, like they said above I would be hesitant to add some of your larger mbuna as they may harass your smaller fronts. It's kinda a 50/50.
 
My advice is different as I would say no, anytime I ve seen it done the fronts are nipped at and get picked on (yes I ve seen small mbuna go at a full grown front) and the ones i see always look very stressed out. I even just recently tried to introduce a mbuna I have that I was gonna try to sell.... just to give him more space untill I sell him.. needless to say he chased all 12 of my fronts and shreaded the fins on the large one in which its half the size of, so I removed him. I did keep a few peacocks at one point in time with my fronts... it wasnt toooo bad but they did tend to nip the fins of the fronts. Its really up to you and if you want to give it a try. If you really just want to keep tank mates with them I would look into rock dwellers and open dwellers from lake tang... I ve kept different varaties with my fronts with great success. I know I ve seen people do it and seems to be ok... but ime and from what I have personally seen... it doesnt work out and the fronts tend to be stressed.
 
You should look into Neolamprologus Leleupi , i got 8 of them with my 10 Moba Frontosa, they do great together,
 
Sidrock;4551187; said:
I don't know if it's a related question: but what about keeping Frontosa with Utaka (Haps, Peacocks)?
Click to expand...

good point ... i have a few haps mixed with mbuna, so thats a good question to add
 
I've kept frontosa's with haps before (and currently still have a pair of crytocara moorii in the tank). I had them with dimidiochromis compressiceps and nimbochromis venustus.

The two latter species of haps didn't harass the frontosa's or anything but they were much more active swimmers and the males (particularly the venustus) displayed alot to attract the females and that activity would damper the frontosa's activity quite a bit.

(video of the tank from over three years ago):
[YT]xLhy9RBMBcE[/YT]

When the ventus and eye-biters were no longer in the tank, the frontosa's became noticeably more comfortable.

I think they do best with calm slow swimming fish (which pretty much means with other frontosas).

One of the two blue dolphins still in the tank occasionally picks on some newer smaller frontosas that are similarly sized (the fronts above video are now 10-13" and are never messed with my the dolphins).
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
MonsterFishKeepers.com
Top Bottom