Does anyone know much about this species? I have admired them every since I first started researching the stocking for my mbuna tank. Now I'm beginning to think about replacing my OB zebras for msobos. But I'm still uncertain. Plus no one around here carries them. Where would I look to get them online? I would want to make sure to get good stock.
Metriaclima sp "msobo"
- Thread starter blue2fyre
- Start date
I have some experience here. I am with you, I fell in love with the pics of these guys. Right now I have 13 of them. I can tell you my experiences with online vendors as well.
1st, I ordered from eddie(bluegrass) and had a bad time with him. he took forever to send my order, and once he did, he sent me barely one inch msobo. I had ordered 10 2-3 inchers. Not what I ordered at all. I had them in a quarantine tank for a month, and lost one. I added them to the regular tank and lost two more. I have gone a couple months with the 7 that remain. The color on them is very nice. The problem is out of the ten I got, Id say 8 have black spotting somewhere in their body. It def takes away from them. I feed NLS, and my params are perfect. So, I have 2 clean looking msobo out of the 7.
2nd, I ordered from Livefishdirect. I had seen a special they were having for 3-4 inch female msobo, for only 5 dollars! I jumped on it and bought 6, along with a few other fish. The other fish looked nice, but the Msobo were just plain UGLY! the females were a brownish yellow and look nothing like my original msobo that I bought from eddie. completely different coloring. 2 out of those 6 got sick and died. The rest I am getting rid of at my lfs sometime soon.
3rd. I just ordered from Daves rare fish. I saw that he had F1 Msobo, but he only had 3-4 inch and males were 29 and females 19... I called and asked when he would be getting more juvies in, and he said it wouldnt be for another month or 2. So, I wanted some quality msobo, so I ordered a male and female. wasnt cheap by any means. I ordered other fish to justify it, and it was part of my x mas present *wink* I got the 2 and the male was probably 5 inches and gorgeous. The female I got was the same color as eddies, just without any weird black markings. she was a tiny bit beat up, but that was because all dave had left was one female, and 2 males in his stock. She has been active, and is healing up well.
Bottom line, I have ordered online 4 times. Twice from Livefishdirect, once from bluegrass, and once from dave. LFD, their quality on each order left a bit to be desired. Eddie, I wont detail, but I had a bad experience. Dave, the fish were great, but it was not cheap in the least. Especially right now being cold, shipping was pretty high.
If you want quality msobo, I would go with dave. But,I would wait till he gets more in, and buy them when the weather gets a little better.
1st, I ordered from eddie(bluegrass) and had a bad time with him. he took forever to send my order, and once he did, he sent me barely one inch msobo. I had ordered 10 2-3 inchers. Not what I ordered at all. I had them in a quarantine tank for a month, and lost one. I added them to the regular tank and lost two more. I have gone a couple months with the 7 that remain. The color on them is very nice. The problem is out of the ten I got, Id say 8 have black spotting somewhere in their body. It def takes away from them. I feed NLS, and my params are perfect. So, I have 2 clean looking msobo out of the 7.
2nd, I ordered from Livefishdirect. I had seen a special they were having for 3-4 inch female msobo, for only 5 dollars! I jumped on it and bought 6, along with a few other fish. The other fish looked nice, but the Msobo were just plain UGLY! the females were a brownish yellow and look nothing like my original msobo that I bought from eddie. completely different coloring. 2 out of those 6 got sick and died. The rest I am getting rid of at my lfs sometime soon.
3rd. I just ordered from Daves rare fish. I saw that he had F1 Msobo, but he only had 3-4 inch and males were 29 and females 19... I called and asked when he would be getting more juvies in, and he said it wouldnt be for another month or 2. So, I wanted some quality msobo, so I ordered a male and female. wasnt cheap by any means. I ordered other fish to justify it, and it was part of my x mas present *wink* I got the 2 and the male was probably 5 inches and gorgeous. The female I got was the same color as eddies, just without any weird black markings. she was a tiny bit beat up, but that was because all dave had left was one female, and 2 males in his stock. She has been active, and is healing up well.
Bottom line, I have ordered online 4 times. Twice from Livefishdirect, once from bluegrass, and once from dave. LFD, their quality on each order left a bit to be desired. Eddie, I wont detail, but I had a bad experience. Dave, the fish were great, but it was not cheap in the least. Especially right now being cold, shipping was pretty high.
If you want quality msobo, I would go with dave. But,I would wait till he gets more in, and buy them when the weather gets a little better.
Thank you so much for the information. It's sad about bluegrass I was looking at them since they also had giant demasoni which I have always wanted but never seen for sale.
I've heard so many mixed reviews about livefish direct I was planning on avoiding them all together.
I will check out Daves rare fish again. I was originally turned off due to the high prices.
I will be waiting until at least March before ordering. The winter's up here are so cold and even with express i worry about the fish safety.
How is the msobos temperament?
I've heard so many mixed reviews about livefish direct I was planning on avoiding them all together.
I will check out Daves rare fish again. I was originally turned off due to the high prices.
I will be waiting until at least March before ordering. The winter's up here are so cold and even with express i worry about the fish safety.
How is the msobos temperament?
I added the smaller msobo once they got to 1.5 inches. They as juvies have been fine in the community tank I have. Still are to this day. The larger females I got from LFD have never caused an issue in the tank, they have been peaceful. The 2 I just got from Daves, the female even being a little tattered is active and non aggressive. The male, who is actually 5 inches, has not shown to be agressive in nature. I have a maingano who is prolly 4 inches and he does a bit of chasing to the other inhabinants. The msobo is much bigger and even when the maingano tried to strut, he didnt attack him. he just asserted that he was bigger. The stock is demasoni, juvie msobo and red zebras. so far so good, even with the male being much much larger than anyone else...
I currently have metriaclima msobo's in three of my tanks and have a different experience or view in regards to msobo temperment.
Of all the mbuna species I've ever kept I've found that matured females can be very aggressive toward other msobo's of their own gender. They get along fairly peaceful-like until they hit 3" or 4" inches. I've had no issue with either gender as far as aggressiveness toward other mbuna species.
Of all the mbuna species I've ever kept I've found that matured females can be very aggressive toward other msobo's of their own gender. They get along fairly peaceful-like until they hit 3" or 4" inches. I've had no issue with either gender as far as aggressiveness toward other mbuna species.
In a single day a female msobo rendered my 2m/4f msobo group down to a 2m/2f group and was in the process of 'taking out' the remaining female when I discovered what had happened. Prior to that the entire group had been getting along fine and had been together since they were juvies.
I currently have two full grown male msobo's in two different tanks with other types of mbuna's. They're the only one's of their kind in the tanks they're in and are doing fine.
In my third tank I've got a 1m/5f msobo group. Things are going fine with them thus far, but all of the females are under 3" at this point.
In my third tank I've got a 1m/5f msobo group. Things are going fine with them thus far, but all of the females are under 3" at this point.