# Mpimbwe Frontosa Fry



## kdizzle0315 (Mar 29, 2015)

I was on here a LONG time ago, when we first got into Cichlids and got our tanks set up. About 4 years ago we got 10 Mpimbwe Blue Frontosa for our 120gal tank. We currenlty have 1 LARGE male and about 6 females. We noticed today that there are about 20 fry swimming around at the bottom, and another female is holding!!

We had a 75 gal tank with various haps and peacock cichlids that bred before, but we just let them be and the ones that made it grew up.

Does anyone have any experience with the Frontosa breeding? Are there any steps we should be taking to help insure the babies survival? We never planned on breeding them, it kind of just happened. We do have a local pet store that is VERY interested in the babies, so we'd like to take the best steps to keep the babies alive. Any tips, suggestions would be great!!

WE do have another tank that we are planning to set up tomorrow. THANKS YA'LL!


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## Razzo (Oct 17, 2007)

So your Pims are holding and releasing free swimming fry into the main tank and nobody is eating them  You are more fortunate than you know :wink:

Pull new fry and you can put them in a 10-gallon tank for a month. I guess, to keep it simple, you can feed them NLS Grow .5mm sinking pellets. You may need to crush it up into, almost a powder, the first few weeks using a pestle and mortar.

Roughly two months from spawn, they should be close to 1.25" which is the size most of us wait to sell them.

You can sell them wholesale to your Pet store for $15 each, $10 if your desperate. They probably sell Burundi fry (which have a cost of $8) for $25 to $35 dollars each. Tanz fry like your Pims are more valuable than Burundi fry. Don't let them try to give you Burundi prices :wink: You may need to educate them on the differences. That's just my advice if you want it.

Most of us have to strip fry and tumble them in a tumbler (pic below):










One of my nursery tanks (10-gallon)









Congrats


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## kdizzle0315 (Mar 29, 2015)

Thanks so much for the advice!! We are currently setting up our 75 gal (as thats what we had empty and plan to build up another Tang tank). Hopefully within the week to 2 weeks we can move them over when the tank is set up and running. Right now our one female is on the side of the tank with about 20-30 of the babies, the male is kinda keeping all the others away from the female and the babies. It's kinda neat to watch! We've never live fed these fish so could that be a reason they aren't eating them?? I saw the female thats staying with the babies suck some back into her mouth when we fed them and then she spit them back out.

We will crush up some of the pellets to help the babies feed. Thanks again for all the advice!! Your pictures are cool too!!


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## Razzo (Oct 17, 2007)

kdizzle0315 said:


> ?..Right now our one female is on the side of the tank with about 20-30 of the babies, the male is kinda keeping all the others away from the female and the babies... saw the female thats staying with the babies suck some back into her mouth when we fed them and then she spit them back out...


You are SO the envy of 99.983% of Cypho keepers. You are experiencing something the so called "experts" can only hope for. That is so cool! Enjoy it!


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## Twofronts2 (May 14, 2015)

sorry to bump and old thread, however how are the fry doing that spit in the tank?


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