# How terrible is it to mix Malawi's with Frontosa's?



## Mellywell (Dec 1, 2012)

Newbie here. 
Lots of us I see. 
I've been keeping fish for over 30 years. Started with guppies, swords, mollies, tetra's the usual. 
For the past 15 years I've had the same Frontosa's. For the past 10 years everyone lives in a 120 gallon tank. Over time I have lost a few from the females fighting amoungst themselves. Also over the years the male knocked a couple of females off. I've always had between 5-7 total. I currently have 1 alpha male, 2 female, one that I thought was female for 10 years but is now allowing his lump to grow, and I feel is male, will soon have to move him on as my Alpha is begining to notice. The last one is the last fry that lived and he's about 5" now and I think he too is a male. OH NO. Always have my eye's open for large females, but they are hard to sex and mine are old. I think they are burundi. Also for the last 15 years I've had 2 very large clown loaches that have gown up with my fronts.

Anyway, I became quite bored of my tank for the last couple of years and honestly did very little water changes. Fronts are soooo hardy. The love the hardness of the water where I am and thrive, thrive, thrive.

I spoke to a local supplier store and not once does anyone ever say "that's not a good idea". I did a lot of reading, but I can't find anything that says "that's a bad idea".

So currently I have with my fronts, a pair of sunshine peacocks, 1 male Borelyi, 2 leleupi, and one Eureka Red peacock. Everyone is getting along well and its been 2 months. We are however, just getting over bloat. I've never done so many water changes. I will admit I was excited to get back into my hobby and fed too much and was talked into a newer brand of food to try. I usually feed New Life Spectrum, tried something new, didn't work out for me (or my fishes) so well. REGRET.

Besides wanting to know how long I give it before doing a mercy kill? Today is day 15 of Metro treatment, fasting every third day then feeding only S flakes and peas, and I beleive they are all eating again, but I have not yet seen poop from two of them, my female sunshine and the eureka red are the two in question. It never seemed to affect my fronts. My poor fronts miss their NLS pellets, although love the peas. Hand fed some pellets to the fronts today and they were very thankful.

Back to my original question, was it a terrible thing to do? I love the action, the colour, the variety. But I love my Fronts (and Loaches) more.

investing in a hospital tank
and now will ask HERE before doing anything. 
Thanks a bunch. 
Melissa


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## Fogelhund (Dec 3, 2002)

Plenty of people keep frontosa in with larger Malawian Haplochromines, and sometime peacocks with success... at least when the frontosa are larger. When they are smaller, they can often be prone to being bullied, but that isn't likely to happen once the fronts are bigger. Mixing fronts with mbuna usually ends up in the finnage of the frontosa getting picked at though, and that is where the generalization comes from. The biggest problem I see, is that frontosa are piscivourous, typically eating once the lights go out. A 12" male frontosa can eat, or attempt to eat a fish up to 7", so some of your fish could be on the menu one day.


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## Mellywell (Dec 1, 2012)

Thank you very much. I appreciate it. Yes, I did start out with 5 leleupi and I'm down to 2. Most expensive meal I've spent on my fronts to date. These two I have a feeling will be around a while. The mbuna and the leleupi take turns chasing each other in and out of caves. I'll keep my eyes peeled. 
Thanks.


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## Razzo (Oct 17, 2007)

I have never mixed them but FH is right, mbuna probably are to blame for the generalization. They will destroy frontosa trailers (in most cases too).

Best wishes on curing the bloat. Peacocks with fronts would be a beautiful combination.

You mentioned "But I love my Fronts (and Loaches) more" so, please forgive my suggestions... With my fronts, I have always stuck with Tangs (larger Tangs close to maturity). Your leleupi should do fine (once size is closer to their max) and their color should rival almost any Malawi cichlid. You could add some altolamps (calvus or compressiceps) in place of the peacocks and a Julidochromis regani (Kipili) will replace the auratus nicely and get big enough to have a good chance of avoiding predation. You could throw in some syno cats too :wink:

You could probably keep the clown loaches too.

Hope that helps some.

Russ


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## Razzo (Oct 17, 2007)

Mellywell said:


> Thank you very much. I appreciate it. Yes, I did start out with 5 leleupi and I'm down to 2. Most expensive meal I've spent on my fronts to date. These two I have a feeling will be around a while. The mbuna and the leleupi take turns chasing each other in and out of caves. I'll keep my eyes peeled.
> 
> Thanks.


Sorry to hear about the leleupi snack. How big were they?

Mbuna are usually bad news with fronts nipping fins.


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## Mellywell (Dec 1, 2012)

Thank Russ! 
I took some of your advise. First, I have a friend with a Mbuna tank ready to take my female auratus on Sunday when I take out all of my rock to catch her. Since you mentioned the fin nipping - I'VE SEEN IT! 
Today I did a 60% water change. 40% in the morning and 20% just now as I found it difficult to keep the Nitrates down during the Metro treatment. The Eheim is fully stocked back with carbon and everything is running. 
I didn't lose a fish during the bloat. I treated for almost 21 days. Makes me a bit nervious that it might not be over. Everyone is eating. The two I was worried about, just small amounts, but eating. I haven't seen any poop from one, but the other has white steaky poop, then brown, then streaky, then brown all in one 1.5 inch trail, which is huge improvement from just the hair like white streaky poop. I work full time so watching for poop all day isn't possible. But I watch for hours when I get home. Total poop patrol. 
I've had my eyes on some full grown Julidochromis Marlieri for a while. I know the colour isn't quite right (for replacing the colour of the mbuna), but it still gives me the variety I want in the tank and the chocolate brown is quite gorgeous. There are 3 of them in the shop. All about 5-6". I have them on hold until I'm ready. 
Soooooo....when do you think I'm ready?



Melissa


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## S4surf (Oct 18, 2006)

Hi Melissa,

If your fish are just starting to eat I would wait at least another week to add fish.

If you were saying the Julie Malieri are 5-6" then they might be all one sex. If I remember correctly the female gets larger than the male by 2/3rds. Or it could be the other way around cso do some searching  They might make it like the Leleupi but could also be an easy snack for a Frontosa. I also have had Leleupi be a PITA bothering frontosa so keep an eye on them. I have had great success with Peacocks mixed in but they were in a big tank.

One of the best fish I had with them is Phenochilus Tanzania's. They also get big and are a colorful peaceful giant.

http://www.cichlid-forum.com/profiles/s ... hp?id=1218

Steve


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## Razzo (Oct 17, 2007)

I have never had to treat for bloat (that I know of). Stringy white feces scares me. I might be tempted to give them a broad range antibiotic like Kanamycin sulfate and continue your metro treatment too. KM may have been taken off the market??? John at JEHMCO can suggest it's replacement.

Best wishes!

Russ


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## Mellywell (Dec 1, 2012)

Just a quick update and thank you to the three gents that helped me out. Fogelhund, Steve and Russ.

So the bloat is gone, and we've recovered. No fish lost. I can't beleive it. But all is well and everyone has brown poop again and eating and chasing and doing fishy things. I big big sigh of relief. It was really touch and go and I used the advsie of the manager of our local store and some of my own techniques I mixed and matched by reading everyones different opinions on many different sites. I treated for almost three weeks. Signs of recovery only started to show after day 14 so I'm glad I hung in there. I'm glad they hung in there. 
I took your advise and did rehome my auratus, she went to an auratus tank of a friend of mine and is causing trouble over there now. I also rehomed one of my younger male Frontosa as he was starting to get picked on by my alpha male. He got a 300 gallon tank and is in with a bunch of haps. He's the only front but a very happy fish by the sounds of things. 
As you can see by my signature I added a second Eheim. We want to put the house up for sale in the spring and by the sounds of things by all my reading, setting up a new tank (cause i want to upgrade...who doesn't?) and moving one of my exisiting filters over there to get the entire thing going would be the easiest way to ensure a really good bacteria start. Then of course, getting a filter for the right size of the new tank would be step two.

I am enjoying my Frontosa, peacock combination. And I think I've got a good balance of behaviours right now so not just one fish gets picked on. Seems from my Leleupi left I probably have two males. One was dark and always hiding and since I brought home the other two peacocks which were closer to the leleupi size and much smaller than my other peacocks, the alpha leleupi and the peacocks are playing "tag" a lot and the load has been lifted from the less dominant leleupi and he's getting some colour back and coming out to feed. In order to catch the front and the auratus I had to take all of my Canadian Sheild out so when I placed it back in I made a two seperate territories on either side of the tank with lots of caves in each so each leleupi took an end and it seemed to have worked.

I've also added a King Tiger Pleco. He's about 4.5" and gorgeous! With the extra water circulation he seems to be enjoying it in there. I also like the fact that he's omnivorous so he'll eat both the healthy green algea I have going on and the sinking pellets if there are any left over.

Well, my goal now is to find myself a female leleupi or two and I'd like a pare of Juli Marlieri eventually, but do to the dimensions of this tank, I think I'll have to wait to get more territory for them. A Royal pleco has always been on my list and them I'm done. I've learned to slow things down too as to not stress out my exisiting fish.

Life is good in my tank right now and thanks for all of your help.


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## 02redz28 (Dec 21, 2012)

I kept my colony with a pair of D. compressiseps and groups of P. phenochilus and H. borleyi with good success. I liked the look and they all behaved themselves is a 200 gallon.


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