# New to Frontosa...mine is not eating



## npg3 (Nov 27, 2005)

Hi,

I just bought my first frontosa on Tuesday, and he is not eating. He is very timid in my tank...he does come out to see me when I come into the room, but then he hides when I lift up the glass covers to put the Spectrum Pellets in.

His belly is slightly concave, which is about the same as when I bought him.

When I first brought him home, he was inhaling the food the first night, but he has not really taken anything since then. I even put dried Krill in the mix with the Spectrum.

It is a new 180g wide tank. There are several peacocks, one Hap, one yellow lab, and a Placidochromis...about 9-10 total. I am adding fish slowly, but I would like more Frontosas.

What should I do? Here are some pics...sorry for the poor quality.


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## davespeed3 (Mar 29, 2009)

Frontosa are generally timid fish and do better in a colony of their own, despite their eventual size. They can dip out at feeding time when smaller, agile and more aggresive fish are present. This also means they can take some time to settle down and adjust to different conditions, a couple of weeks is not unheard of.
Thats a nice tank! and a nice Front, personally, I'd bin the Malawi's into another tank and fill the 180 with Frontosa...just my humble and very biased opinion :wink:


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## npg3 (Nov 27, 2005)

Thank you for the reply...Cheers, Nick


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## davespeed3 (Mar 29, 2009)

A couple of other things that might be relevant, often you read on forums about frontosa hiding and being inactive compared to other fish. You have to consider the fact that in the wild they hunt the Cyps' at night when they sleep (sneaky buggers  ) combine this with the fact that they live at approx 40m down in the lake and you begin to realise they aren't generally a light tolerant fish. 
I have a group of Wild caught Kigoma 7 stripe, I started with double T8 and T5's, I'm down to one bulb in each and these are masked to further reduce light, I also have moonlights. Its taken me a couple of months to get to a situation where they'll come out readily to feed with the lights on, although they will sometimes take food from my fingers now. I only have the lights on full for a few hours around midday, cutting back toward night time using timers. Some people provide very little cover (rockwork etc) so they can view their fish all the time, or/and use very basic lighting.
Tank bred fish are a lot more tolerant of lights, I have a group of shop bought Burundi, even these prefer lower light values.


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## thevein (May 10, 2006)

picking up a 7 stripe kigoma this week for my 90gal and wanted to find out what other have experienced with the community introduction of this species. is that concave belly something that will improve or is a sign of poor health and or stress?


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## davespeed3 (Mar 29, 2009)

There's a lot of varibles with intro to community tanks, where the fish has come from, water conditions etc etc etc. I've seen them successfully kept with Electric Yellows, VC 10's and Peacocks etc basically placid fish, I wouldn't fancy the chances with Mbuna especially any mean little f*****s, they can stick up for themselves ok but why stress them out in the first place.
They suffer a lot from fin nippers, but when the lights are out they (might) can sneak up on anything that'll fit in they're mouth and consume it !!
There's alot of people that won't mix lakes, or just have a couple of B/n Plecs for cleanup. I've seen Frontosa kept with fish from different continents, everything seems ok but chances are some of the occupants are not in the best water conditions for long term health, usually the Frontosa :roll: 
There can be issues with mixing piscavores and herbivores, unless you can work out a feeding strategy, so the spectre of Bloat is always present.
So yea it can be done, its just less than ideal :wink:


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## Razzo (Oct 17, 2007)

thevein said:


> picking up a 7 stripe kigoma this week for my 90gal and wanted to find out what other have experienced with the community introduction of this species. is that concave belly something that will improve or is a sign of poor health and or stress?


It is not uncommon to see a "slight" concave on the males. The one pictured is more concave than I would like to see. Also, a 90-gallon tank, in most cases, is not a good foot print for frontosa. A general "rule of thumb" (which I support) is the 6-foot minimum tank.


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## thevein (May 10, 2006)

he's apprx 4.5 to 5" and I'll be upgrading to a 180gal in a few years to accomodate the growth


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## Razzo (Oct 17, 2007)

thevein said:


> he's apprx 4.5 to 5" and I'll be upgrading to a 180gal in a few years to accomodate the growth


A "few years" may be too long for a grow out tank. There is a good possibility that you may experience agression problems related to foot-print. Ideally, a grow-out tank should only be used for about 1 to 1.5 years (depending on foot-print & fish size). I would recommend you plan on getting your 180 sooner than later. Just trying to help


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## thevein (May 10, 2006)

thanks, i'll take the advice for sure. I'll start looking into 180(s) now and buy all my equipment piece by piece to spread out the cost. The real issue isn't the cost but more so, the wife :lol: I'm gonna pull the ole switcharoo on her. sell the old 55 and put it's fish in the 90, then take my 90(s) fish and put them n the 180. I'll prob b on the couch for a week :lol:


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