[punman]

My mpimbwe Frontosa WC breeding group of five are 6-12 inches in length. I have four juveniles 4 inches long in a grow out tank with other fish. Are the offspring big enough to put in with their parents in a 135 gallon tank?

 

[punman]

Well, I guess there are not too many frontosa keepers out there because after a week I got no responses.

I got brave and decided to put them in with the adults and after three days there has been no chasing or mayhem so I think it will work but will monitor closely for the next week.

 

[Steve C]

They should be fine. My colony of Burundi had a spawn of six fry last year. I never even removed the six 1/4" long fry from the tank, yet four of them survived living with six full grown fronts between 9"-12" and are now 5" themselves. I've found with my fronts at least as long as they are feed well they don't bother any smaller fish in the tank.

 

[plug]

I also have put in some fry into my main Frontosa Tank that were only about 3 inches long and they have done fine
Apart from the usual establishing pecking order they are fine and have grown much faster in the larger tank

 

[punman]

Good feedback. I have other fry/juveniles half inch to 2.5 inches but felt these small fish did not need the four 4 inchers around. I plan to keep these four for the time being and sell off the smaller juveniles this spring.

 

[nodima]

I thought I had responded earlier to this, but either I did not, or my reply was eaten. Like Steve C, I had many fry grow up in the tank from the time they were spat out to full grown while I kept Frontosa. My only hesitation would be saying you'd be fine doing so with WC, mine were tank-raised and I don't know if this would be one of those things that is different between WC and tank raised. At 4" I can't see you having issues though

 

[punman]

I have had my WC for two years now. They were initially 4.5 to 6 inches, Now they are 7 to 11 inches. They get along fine with each other and are starting to breed now with less "holding" issues than a year ago. But they had always been skittish. Freaking out if you approached the tank too quickly. I have noticed this last week with the juveniles in there, the adults seem more friendly as the fry were never skittish in their own tank and are not shy in the big tank either.