Fronts and C. Moorii

[jordanlewis100]

the cause of bloat is linked to feeding too much dried food(pellets),water quality and overcrowding c. moorii are NOT mbuna and shouldn't be crowded as such as that will stress them,same goes for fronts,my moorii and fronts got on really well and they lived with n.livinstonii and s.fryeri(electric blue)

 

[DragonKeeper]

C. Moorii is actually not a Mbuna but a Malawi hap. Both the Moorii and the Fronts are carnivourous, but just because they are carnivourous dosen't mean they can't bloat. Too much protien in most if not all Malawi/Tang fish will bloat them. The Malawians are especilly prone to this.

As for an agressive Moorii. My thought is that there were to many fish in your tank and as they grew up they required more space ( Keep in mind that moorii is a 9" fish and the Moba is a 12"+ fish) all in a 125g is way more than would be recomended by any aquariust. I know of many experienced fish keepers who keep these two togeather with resounding success. Some breeders actually recomend Moorii as a tankmate for fronts because of their mellow disposition.

I noticed that you were feeding earthworms I personally would not recomend this practice. Earthworms can carry many pollutants and diseases and bad bacteria with in there bodies. I personally feed only NLS to all my fish. The only deviation is that tanks with plecos (most of mine) also get a couple of tabs of Hikari algea tabs. I know everyone says that you should feed a variety of things to your fish. IMHO that is because there aren't to many foods out there that provide a fish with everything that it needs. I believe, after talking to many professional breeders in my area that NLS has everything a fish needs. I feed them to my carnivores and my herbivores and have never had a bloat problem.

All of this is just my HO and I hope no one takes any offense to anything that I have said.

 

[DragonKeeper]

the cause of bloat is linked to feeding too much dried food(pellets),water quality and overcrowding c. moorii are NOT mbuna and shouldn't be crowded as such as that will stress them,same goes for fronts,my moorii and fronts got on really well and they lived with n.livinstonii and s.fryeri(electric blue)

The cause of bloat is nothing to do with the amount of dried food(pellets) that you are feeding your fish. Bloat is caused by to much protien in the fishes diet. Most Malawians are herbivores the rest are omnivores. These fish have a longer digestive tract build to digest the plant matter and small amount of protien that they pick up with that plant matter.

 

[Red Devil]

I've kept moorii with fronts and I won't ever do it again.

I bought 23 1-1/2 inch fronts from a breeder to add to a 125g that I had just set up. I also grabbed 5 blue dolphins because I liked how they looked - they LOVED the open swimming space and were really doing great. But since the fronts were so tiny I started to beef up their food intake so they would get bigger faster. I fed them frozen krill, pieces of worm, brine shrimp and extra New Life Spectrum pellets. They really started to pack on the mass, but a problem arose - the moorii were better eaters. They could out-swim the fronts and were soon eating the majority of the food - which led to bloat. Malawi bloat hit the moorii hard, and by the time I knew what was going on it had started hitting the fronts too. I had never thought that fronts were able to get bloat - I was wrong. The moorii that died would stick to the filter intake, and the fronts are piscivores and naturally eat fish flesh.. so the disease-infested carcasses became snacks (before I could remove them) and the bloat transferred to my baby frontosa.

They all had to be moved to a 29g hospital tank and treated with clout. When it was all said and done I had 8 F1 Mpimbwe frontosa left and a single, very skinny, very aggressive moorii. And that is why I won't mix mbuna with frontosa again - the differences in their diets can be disastrous.

Get some calvus or comps in there and you'll be happier. That, or feed your front/moorii tank nothing but NLS pellets.

Go with the comps/calvus or another predator and you can feed your tank earthworms or almost any frozen food you like. I have an 18" Fire eel in my frontosa tank and they get along great.

Thanks for sharing this..i almost picked up a few moorii the other day..now i know i will be leaving them at the LFS.. don't want anything to hurt my fronts.. i have a big pair of severum in with them now.. and all is peaceful.. but i sure like those moorii..

 

[Havoc]

The Moorii are great, but in my opinion they shouldn't be mixed with fronts. Frontosa are slow and shouldn't be kept with faster, more agressive eaters. They're best kept with other Tangs like calvus (although you'll have problems with spawn interruption). Avoid overly-active fish and herbivores that can't handle the frozen foods you suppliment the fronts with.

The ideal front tank would have big, slow carnivorous dither fish that keep to the top water column. I've kept frontosa (Mpimbwe) for 3 years now and they're great fish, once you learn what tankmates they do best with. I'd like to try an arowana with a colony some day. I think as long as the water quality was suitable, they'd do well being as they inhabit different water columns. The aro would probably also coax the fronts out into the open more.

 

[toehead11183]

i agree, my moorii would chase each other in the tank, scaring the fronts and causing them to run into the grass. i removed my moorii