Most mbuna are vegatarians. Umbee are not. That will cause bloat promblems for the mbuna. Umbees will not liive on a highly algae based food. Any dithers will not last long. Umbees
Umbies with mbuna
- Thread starter lunsforj
- Start date
Meant western side of the Andes in my previous post. In response to Allan01230, thank you for the dietary insight. I am well aware of the food demands of both fish. As a kid I was fascinated by the mbuna of Lake Malawi and read every piece of literature on them I could get my hands on (before the internet). Prehistoric times essentially. Back when you weren't a good parent if you didn't order the Encyclapedia Britanica for you child and regularly recieve their update editions. But I digress, these fish are what I cut my teeth on in the hobby. I feel like the challenges posed by the varying diets of both fish could be overcame by feeding a mix of large and small NLS pellets and a quality spirulina flake such as OSI. IME mbuna are pure survivors, being able to tolerate and even thrive in less than ideal conditions. Quite commonly they are successfully maintained with some of the larger Haps from Malawi, which also have a diet vastly different than them.
Bloat is now generally thought to be caused by 'stress'. Mbuna tanks can have a lot of aggression issues....diet may or may not play a role in bloat but there is no real, hard evidence that it does. I find it a little 'funny' how I have managed to feed mbuna a lot of frozen fish over the last 35+ years and never got a single case of bloat in an African cichlid(???). Regardless, the same kind of pellets are fed to all cichlids. Fish meal (and/or krill) is almost always the 1st ingrediant in just about all pellet/flake foods that are typically fed to mbuna and other cichlids. Protein % is always listed as a minimum (not a maximum) and you can bet a lower figure will be used if the product is being marketed towards rift lake cichlid keepers. Generally, the only real difference in a product line of pellets is the label, not ingredients.It's primarily marketing.
Nothing special or unusual about the pH of lake Malawi. A lot of CA cichlids come from much harder and higher pH. Umbies do come from higher pH as well. Regardless, it's not particularily fussy about water parameters. And if you keep your fish in regular tap water (dechloriated) what is the difference, anyways?
A lot of people don't like the idea of mixing new world and old world cichlids. IMO it's primarily a question of 'taste'. But many of these same aqaurists will mix all kinds of fishes that don't come from the same lakes or rivers. I think it's worth a try. Mbuna are quick, tough and confident.....and at least once an umbie are large, are very unliely to challange for supremacy of the tank. IMO, they have a better chance of co-existing with an mbuna, then closely related CA cichlids.
My thoughts exactly. I am usually a purist myself but with umbriferum I feel like my tankmate/dither choices are very limited. In my dream world I could display them in an enourmous tank with a large group of red hump eartheaters of some kind. I feel like the behavior and color of both fish would compliment each other very well.
My main objective with keeping the umbees with mbuna would be to divert the males attention away from the female. These fish are hard to come by in the hobby and are relatively spendy to replace. I would hate to lose the female. I am also not against the incomplete divider method for keeping these fish but seeing as how they are so similar in size at the moment, this would be difficult at best.
Hmmm, I see. Well that would definitely been an interesting tank display. I wouldnt but interesting. Good luck.
That is one I was considering also I figured some big bumble bees might fill the bill as well. I worked at a store right out of high school that had a group of bumble bees around 6 to 7 inches and mean as can be.
Yea bumble bees are nasty. I read that one guy had one in a mixed cichlid community tank and it wiped out everything in the tank. Became one hell of a wet pet though.
