frontosa gibberosa moba

[esoxlucius]

Bear with me on this one. I've never been a big fan of cichlids, I suppose it's the aggression thing with them and you can't keep this species with that and all the rest of it. As a result of my lack of interest in them I pay little attention to threads about them and don't research them. Until the other day....

I came across a tank on you tube with a shoal of what I can only describe as the most stunning fish I have seen in a long long while. It was the frontosa, namely the gibberosa moba variety. I've done some research and they seem to be quite peaceful as far as cichlids go, right? Keep them in groups with only one male and you can't go far wrong, right? Then one tank I saw threw me a bit and went against the grain somewhat. Some guy had a shoal of frontosa in a community tank with lots of clown loach and some other fish. The fish were peaceful, no aggression, it looked a stunning tank.

So obviously, mixing frontosa with other none cichlid species is certainly possible, right? Help me out a little here. I'm building a 300g or so plywood tank next year and my plan is to put my current stock from my 180g in it along with a few of these stunning frontosa. Or am I potentially in for a load of grief?

 

[Steve_C]

Frontosa are a great fish, I have a colony of about 10 of burundi fronts that range from 6" up to my 12" alpha male. Currently I have I believe 3 males and 7 females in my 125 6' tank. I actually only wanted the original 4 in that tank because 10 is a LOT for that size tank but they spawned and gave me 6 fry that all grew up so that's why there are that many shoved in there at the moment.

Far as to what they can be mixed with, just like with other cichlids it really is a crapshoot and roll of the dice as to if it will work. In with my fronts I had 3 gold head comps, and 6 Leleupi. Even with the comps and lele's being about 3" and some of the fronts being 12" they never bothered the smaller fish. That was the four main fronts I had though that never bothered the small fish. Now that the 6 fry have grown to about 6" I have noticed I am down to 1 gold head comp and 4 leleupi. So I think the 6" fronts now that they are bigger have been whacking some of them. Yet the larger 12" fronts don't bother the smaller fish. So you can see what I mean about it just being a roll of the dice. I definitely would not chance putting clown loaches in with them though. Clowns have stiff barbs that they can lock out so if a front tried to eat a clown and it locked those barbs in position the front would die, so I would advise against mixing in any clown loaches.

Another thing I will tell you about fronts since you haven't had any is don't expect a lot of activity. They are beautiful, they are graceful, but they are a slow moving fish that doesn't show a lot of activity. That is until you spook them. Then they will streak across the tank crashing into things and sometimes hurting themselves. That's just a natural instinct they have and no matter how long you have them they will never lose that fear. I always have to walk up to my tank of fronts slowly or they go crashing all over.

 

[esoxlucius]

Thanks for the reply. You raised a good point regarding the clown loaches eye spike, i'd forgot about that potential hazard. Maybe bigger clowns would be OK so the chances of the fronts having a go would be minimal.

I noticed in the you tube videos that they don't seem to be right active, but man, they don't have to active with looks like that. They could stay still all day long, i'd still marvel at their beauty.

As far as being occasionally skittish i'm used to that. I always have to be careful how I approach my current 180 in case my balas, tinfoils and chalceus go bananas. But a lot of that skittishness could be down to them getting bigger and beginning to outgrow the 180. If they were all in a 300g or so, which is what i'm building in the new year, then they may be less skittish.

What do you do to maintain a pretty high ph for them? Crushed coral? Or do you just go for neutral ph and let the fish acclimatise to that?

 

[Steve_C]

I never bought into the way some people try to buffer PH. I'm not saying they are wrong for doing it, but my personal thoughts are that most cichlids in the hobby these days are tank raised and are breed/raised in PH that is for the most part lower than what wild ones in Africa are swimming around in. So I don't buffer my PH at all. I feel a steady PH is more important than a high PH. Mine comes out of the tap at about 7.4 and drops to about 7.2 a day later and that's pretty much where it stays. The fish are happy and breed so they do well in that PH.

 

[esoxlucius]

Ok, that's what I thought regarding ph, steady away is better than messing with it all the time. I'm not too bothered whether they breed or not but it looks like they probably will whether I want them to or not. At breeding time does the male become overly aggressive to everything or are they pretty chilled? One of my biggest concerns on this next project i'm planning is that the male front absolutely dominates the tank and bullies his other non cichlid tank mates. But like you said earlier it's going to be a suck it and see type thing.

 

[Steve_C]

No the males don't really show much aggression when they breed. My two biggest males are a 12" Alpha and then an 11" Beta, they will simply nip at each other if one swims by the others face but that's about it. No chasing or real biting or anything like that. Fronts are basically the most relaxed cichlids you will find.

 

[esoxlucius]

Great. Thanks again for taking the time to reply. I feel a bit more confident now about setting up this new tank. Cheers.

 

[Steve_C]

No problem, when you get some be sure to post up some pics. They are a great fish and long as the slow movement of them doesn't bother you then they make a beautiful tank. Not too picky of feeders as well. Mine take pellets, flakes and really like krill once per week.

One thing to make you aware of when feeding. They can get something called "float". That is when they suck in too much air when trying to take food off the surface. So I always feed mine sinking foods or if I give them flakes I take a pinch and release the flakes under water to avoid them feeding at the surface. So keep that in mind for when you feed them.

 

[MrsE88]

Dang I was hoping to see pictures. Lol
If you land any moba you have to post pictures of them. I’d love to have a tank of them someday.

 

[Brettnewell4454]

Fronts are great. I have 6 mpimbwe blue, 2 Male 4 female. I also agree with the not messing with PH. I think it causes more harm than good. I have had many arguments with people about this and my choice of stock. 6 fronts, my Male OB and his 2 females, 1 oscar, 1 blood parrot, leopard leaf fish, and 6 cats of different syno species. As for aggression, I dont have much. The Male OB does a little chasing a couple days a month for breeding but that's about it. There will always be turf tiffs no matter what fish you have. I've never seen them lip lock, the most they do is flare up for a couple seconds then split off. The flare up colors are gorgeous though