Larger c. Moorii with baby mbuna?

[Gourami Swami]

Hey, a friend recently offered to give me his beautiful 7" C. Moorii because hes moving soon and needs to ckear out his tanks. Id love to take it, but im worried that he would eat my baby mbuna, all about 2". I know theyr peaceful but are they predatory at all?
thanks

 

[Brian_Indiana]

7" vs 2" sounds risky to me. They might not be as aggressive as Mbuna's, but they are still cichlids.

 

[Mokujin22]

I'd say give it a shot. C. moori are not piscivores in nature. Konings refers to them as "followers" along with other blue Placidochromis (electra, phenochilus). They follow around a large taniolethrinops who will plunge his head into the sand and excavate large amounts of sand, looking for small crustaceans/bugs, etc. The moori or placidochromis will look for little bits off to the sides that escape the taniolethrinops.

The have small mouths, located at the bottom of their heads, designed for this. Smaller fish maybe, but 2" is probably a decent size to not get eaten imo. However, most Malawi cichlids are opportunistic feeders and may go after a smaller fish if they get hungry.

If it was me, I'd try it out. Throw one in there and see what happens.

 

[Cleanbio]

I have a 10-11" c. Moorii (male) with mubanas and others....in my case, him trying to eat the smaller fish is not the problem, but rather the fact that he has a tendency to chase and head butt the other fish - a few years back, he killed many of my fish doing this. All in all, it should be okay, as long as the tank has plenty of accessible hiding places for the smaller and/or weaker inhabitants.

 

[mike dunagan]

smaller fish maybe not, fry yes. Mine eat fry, as do most my other haps in a setup I have.

 

[alexmuw]

Your fine. I have 5 dolphins (ranges from 6 to 11 inches). They chase smaller fish (i have a few 2 inch mbunas), but don't eat them. Dolphins are very non-aggressive. In fact, I had to get rid of most of my adult mbunas (4-5 inches) because they were harassing my 11 inch male dolphins.