# Fronts and Lake Malawi species?



## Veterok7777 (Mar 19, 2007)

Here is the deal - I have got a 55g malawi tank with the following fish:
6 yellow labs
1 labidochromis hongi
1 ruby red aulonocara
1 blue aulonocara
1 electric blue hap
Planning to upgrade to a 125g tank, add 4-5 fronts, but also I would love to keep my current fish. 
Is this mix going to work? Fin nipping issues?
Thanks!


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## cichlidgirl1 (Sep 17, 2007)

IMO no. Lots of fin nipping with those species. A couple of the species are also highly aggressive if they are the melanchromis species that my LFS sold as electric blue cichlids . Mine turned out to be johanni, he was a murdurous little turd. Killed 4 fish in a couple hours while i was out shopping. Had been fine in the tank for a couple months, then bam, one day he killed 4 of them for no reason. He got super territorial and hyper aggressive. I had to find it a new home where he was the only fish.

I had peacocks in my six foot tank with my 6 fronts and it was fine till the fish became mature and started spawning, once that happened they raced around nipping everything in site and freaking out in general. Not a good match. In general as far as tankmates goes, its best to keep other fronts for the tank mates. If you just got to have something else in there then my best advice would be to :

Avoid mbuna of any kind including yellow labs

Avoid peacocks (big time fin nippers and hyper fish in general, at least mine were)

Haps work best but limit it to one single fish, dont get a pair or trio of haps in the tank or when they spawn they will change how they behave with the fronts. Best bet would be to get a female hap of some kind. Make sure there are no males of same or similar species for her . Also make sure that the female you get if you have a male hap in the tank does not look at all like his females. For some reason i have found many africans will mate with absolutely anything that has the right coloring, doesnt even have to be the oppisit sex LOL. My red empress female does great by herself with the fronts and her male is even ok as long as she is not there and there are no other mostly silver fish in the tank. LOL.

Try a non aggressive catfish instead of another cichlid. I have a sun cat in my tank right now, it will get similar in size, hides in daytime, comes out at night in the dark to eat and clean my sand. Perfect for my needs. Plus when it does come out it doesnt look half bad for a catfish.

Alot of people report good success with clown loaches. I have not tried this myself yet, but i heard real good things. The loaches are slow growing but eventually can get huge . THey are also schooling fish that dont fin nip so you can get a bunch of them (4 or 5 or even more depending on size of tank and number of other fish). The color contrast between clown loach and fronts is striking and makes a colorful tank, loaches are also very active and clean the tank good. Only draw back i ever heard on them is be sure to QT them good because they can carry ich from the LFS. Being a scaless fish it can be harder to get rid of the ich if it does show up, i believe they just treat at lower dose for more days ...


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## rahim101 (Mar 30, 2003)

http://www.cichlid-forum.com/articles/f ... kmates.php


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## Stuey (Nov 24, 2008)

I have a 6x2x2 with all male mbuna, peacocks, haps also have 3 burundi fronts not a problem in the world the fronts are about 6 inches long not full grown but on there way, they have there territory if the others come too close they let them know to get out.. Again this works for my tank maybe different for others...


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## cichlidgirl1 (Sep 17, 2007)

Mine worked for about six months, then the fin nipping started when the haps and peacocks got to adult size.


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## tirzo13 (May 26, 2004)

clown loaches defense mechanism is to shoot out spines from around its eyes.
so a loach with spines stuck in the throat of a 200 dollar moba is not really my idea of a good tank mate.
as far as tankmates go, those you listed are about the most peaceful from malawi, but still, you can have problems with all of those, at a minimum fin nipping, at worst they will terrorize the frontosa with aggression if you get a mean one.
i have had peaceful yellow labs and peacocks, and i have had crazy ones.
its a **** shoot.
diet wise they are fine, as they are not mbuna that are herbivores.


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## Veterok7777 (Mar 19, 2007)

Thank you!
My most concern is yellow labs and hongi.
My aulonocaras are the most peaceful fish in my tank. They never touch anyone else.
Hap is quite peaceful also. Do not see significant aggression from his side.
But labsâ€¦ They are â€œkingsâ€


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## boredatwork (Sep 14, 2007)

Veterok7777 said:


> Thank you!
> My most concern is yellow labs and hongi.
> My aulonocaras are the most peaceful fish in my tank. They never touch anyone else.
> Hap is quite peaceful also. Do not see significant aggression from his side.
> But labsâ€¦ They are â€œkingsâ€


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## cichlidgirl1 (Sep 17, 2007)

Funny you mention those examples such as fronts and plecos. my africans killed my pleco after a few months, once the haps and peacocks got to spawning age, they basically pecked him to death. I also recently moved my frontosa to different tanks, I had one in the 265 i couldnt catch. It was not a dominant fish at all, low front on the totem pole. Always hiding and nervous. After all his buddies left and he got new roomates (all new world cichlids LOL) his self confidence really went off the charts. He chases and nips now, will select a area or cave to claim and its his for a change. He also dives right into the food now too. He is always out and about with his fins up and extended now too. (he never used to do that) He does not even seem to mind the 12 inch oscars i have in there with them (they dont eat live food or kill fish) . I know it wont be a permanant thing, but until i feel like (or need) emptying the tank of all hiding spots and spending an hour or more to catch a single fish , he is going to stay right where he is at. He seems to like it with out other fronts bossing him around. This makes me wonder about the common belief that fronts "need" or perfer to be housed in larger groups. Maybe for breeding but now im curious just how well a trio might get along or even a single frontosa. Just my two cents.


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## Our_Tanks (Jan 6, 2009)

My last tank was a 80 gallon with all malawi cichlids and one out of place front. They all got along just fine. But i also bought all of them when they were very small and they got along great!


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## boredatwork (Sep 14, 2007)

cichlidgirl1 said:


> Funny you mention those examples such as fronts and plecos. my africans killed my pleco after a few months, once the haps and peacocks got to spawning age, they basically pecked him to death. I also recently moved my frontosa to different tanks, I had one in the 265 i couldnt catch. It was not a dominant fish at all, low front on the totem pole. Always hiding and nervous. After all his buddies left and he got new roomates (all new world cichlids LOL) his self confidence really went off the charts. He chases and nips now, will select a area or cave to claim and its his for a change. He also dives right into the food now too. He is always out and about with his fins up and extended now too. (he never used to do that) He does not even seem to mind the 12 inch oscars i have in there with them (they dont eat live food or kill fish) . I know it wont be a permanant thing, but until i feel like (or need) emptying the tank of all hiding spots and spending an hour or more to catch a single fish , he is going to stay right where he is at. He seems to like it with out other fronts bossing him around. This makes me wonder about the common belief that fronts "need" or perfer to be housed in larger groups. Maybe for breeding but now im curious just how well a trio might get along or even a single frontosa. Just my two cents.


It just goes to show you that rules of thumb in fishkeeping need to be taken with at least a barrel of salt. I always wince when I see someone posting something saying "No you cant do that" because I guarantee you if you search the forums you will find multiple examples of people who are doing it with no issues at all.

Stepping onto soapbox...

I have noticed that this hobby is very over confident in its collective intelligence - which I find to be very superficial. I include myself in this category as well. Of course there are a few people out there that really know what they are doing and why, but in general I find a lot of us do things without any good reason. And "Because" and "I read it on a forum" or "He is doing it that way" are not good reasons - unless your four. Obviously its not exactly a bad thing as most people seem to have a good amount of success in not killing their fish, but in my opinion thats a poor standard to be held to. As an example I would point to the saltwater folks. If you have ever stumbled across some of their articles or forums you have probably had the same experience I have had. I am amazed at how much more they know and how much better they are at having reasons for what they do, collectively, compared to freshwater people. In other words, I would use that as an example to say that there is a better place the hobby can be collectively. I know I have certainly done a lot of things where one day I wonder why I do it that way, and I usually don't have a good answer. Now, this forum can be a good place to fix that, and sometimes it is. But I find that more often than not, most of the information on here perpetuates the status quo. I guess my point is that this is a just another example to show how dynamic things in this hobby are and hopefully we can all learn to embrace and appreciate that.


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## karlwagner (Jun 3, 2002)

I had a giant front in with mixed malawians and I started calling it the taxman since it ate a quarter of every species! I'd pick up four c. mooris, -or anything else- it would eat one, etc.

I just added some new tangs to my new mainly front and tropheus tank, I'm missing a couple.
looks like one (or more) of these little fronts can eat a fish half its size!

I raised these fronts with tropheus so they'd be more aggressive toward food. They are.

I have heard that some people have had malawians starve out front tankmates. My evidence has been to the contrary, although I could believe that it could happen.

As for fin nipping, doesn't everybody?


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## knotty dreadlocks (Oct 31, 2008)

so would it be safe to put in a front with 2 labs, 7 rusties, 3 acei and 5 jalo reefs in my 60 gallon tank. hopefully soon itll be in a bigger tank


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## Charles (Feb 25, 2003)

it is either:

Frontosa eats everything...

or frontosa gets starve out or fin nipped by malawian...

I would not do it.


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## Jowlz (Dec 19, 2008)

I had a Front in with Malawi's about 10 years ago in a 125. I got them all at about 1". They got along fine for about 1.5 years. Though my Mbuna were breeding like Mbuna, only a few fry made it to adulthood. I then got another Front and put the pair in their own tank.


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