# Burundi and Kigoma Frontosa



## kuopan (Jan 10, 2012)

Hi Everyone,

I've been in the hobby for 2-3 years and I just got my first burundi frontosas. I got 3 of them and it looks like I have one male and two females. They are only about 2 inches long.

More recently, I just bought 14 Kigoma frontosas at about .5 inches each. I was wondering if it's a good idea to keep the two breeds together and what the chances of cross breeding will be. Of course, I don't want to cross breed but I was wondering if cross breeding would severly devalue the fish and what the chances of it will be? I've seen some cross-bred frontosas and they still look fine to me. Just wanted to hear your thoughts.

Thanks!


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## fmueller (Jan 11, 2004)

If you keep them together, the chance of cross-breeding is very high. Basically when selecting a mate the fish won't care if the other fish is a Kigoma or a Burundi.

Even though the fish might all look the same to somebody not knowledgable about cichlids, cross-breeding would severely devalue the fish. In a nutshell, Kigoma fry are highly sought after and fetch good money; Burundi fry are quite easy to sell, but the price is significantly lower; cross-breeds - including possible or suspected cross-breeds - most people would not take if you gave them away for free.

In short, I would definitely not keep them together. 14 Kigoma seem like a nice group, and as adults would fill most people's tanks even if you loose some and have to sell excess males. Maybe find the Burundi a good new home? Nothing against Burundi, it's what I keep, but 3 is a bit small as a group, and at two inches you have no way to reliably sex them yet. At that size in any group of three, there will be one big dominant one, and two smaller sub-dominant ones, regardless of gender.


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## kuopan (Jan 10, 2012)

Thank you so much for the concise and detailed explanation!

I was leaning towards finding the burundis a new home but I was hoping that maybe I can mix them without any significant problems such as cross breeding. I think I will keep the burundi for the time being as the kigomas are only 0.5inch fry. I will raise them until they are bigger and when the time is right, find a new home for the burundis.

I have an additional question that I hope you can help answer. I understand that keeping a smaller male to female ratio is ideal (such as 3M and 11F) in my situation where I have 14 kigomas. What is the best ratio I should keep? and also, does this mean that the females are more sought after and valued higher?

Thank you again!


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## fmueller (Jan 11, 2004)

It would be interesting to know your tank size. My Frontosa (Burundi) are in a 240G. I started with 50 fry - Burundi are cheap :wink: - and over the years have culled the herd down to 1 male and 8 females. Granted, I have some other fish in the tank, but even in a 8'x2'x2' I would not want a larger group. I might have kept a second male, but at some stage sold my alpha, because I thought there would be two males left. As it turns out, only one of them was indeed male. A third male would have had a difficult time. Females by and large get along well with each other.

Unless you are an expert at venting fish, they are not easy to sex, since only one or two males will be dominant and show a much larger hump and generally grow to a larger size than the others. As soon as you remove the alpha, another male will quickly step into its position, and experience a growth spurt to look the part - as long as a male is left in the group.

From my experience I would say for a group of 3M and 11F, you need a larger tank than a 240G. But don't count your chickens before the eggs are hatched, in the process of growing out 0.5" Frontosa, you are bound to loose some along the way.

As for price, for breeding purposes females are more valuable, but thankfully people these days pay a lot of attention to keeping strains pure. Unless you know that a female is from your exact strain, I would not buy a single female to ad to my group. For example I know that my Burundi have a lot of blue for that strain. I want to keep that trait, and would not ad another female, even of I know for sure it is also of the Burundi variety. My Burundi are F2. I know both the people who own the F0 and F1 fish. At some stage the seller of my fish lost his last male, and I gave one back to him. Similarly, if I ever needed more fish for my colony, I would not buy them anywhere else than from those folks. I am guessing the people breeding Kigoma are at least as picky.

As for males, there are always people looking for impressive specimen to ad to all male setups for example with haps and peacocks. There are also people looking for fish to display in fish shows for example at the ACA or OCA Extravaganza. Both those groups of people are used to paying top dollars for fish. Overall, I would say an impressive Frontosa male is easier to sell and should fetch more money than a female. By far the most money people will pay for a nice breeding group.


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