An era of my fish keeping life ended, or began depending on your outlook, recently with the passing of one of my original cichlids. My female Julidochromis dickfeldi  passed on. There is a part of me that feels her passing has completed my understanding of her species.

I believe it was six years ago that I was introduced to cichlids. My girl friend at the time wanted a fish tank to compliment our viquarium. So we saved up some money and went to our local fish store. We left with a 20 gallon long and several juvenile cichlids as well as a Julie pair. I took it all home and we got to setting it up. When I introduced my pair to their first home I came as close to breaking the pair bond as I ever would. They had a minor tussle, lip locking and all, which looked like kissing to me so I aptly named them Harry and Sally. All Julidochromis form a pair bond for life. They will mate together and kill any conspecific competition. I have read accounts of people accidentally breaking the pair bond resulting in the death of the smaller Julie. Fortunately for me and my Julies that first tussle was the only time my pair ever lip locked. I believe my luck is that my Julies became attached to a piece of lava rock as their territory and this rock was always with them even after tank changes. Thus they had their spawning cave.

Julies make great parents unlike a lot of fish one does not have to do anything special to raise fry. Literally at times I felt that if one adds water and Julies they will end up with fry. As I have stated before when I purchased mine I believe they were already a pair. At the time they were both about 1.25 inches. I know for a fact that I did not get fry until my fish were moved to my mother's which would have been about 4 years ago. Now whether this was due to my other inhabitants, Sciaenochromis fryeri  , Aulonocara jacobfreibergi , Altolamprologus compressiceps amongst others or due to their sexual maturity I am not certain. I do know that all of my fish endured a seven hour car ride in a cooler box, perhaps this triggered a response in my fish? Either way they began breeding and didn't stop until my female died; in fact as I write this I can look over at one of her last broods. However I am jumping ahead of myself here, let us step back in time.

At first I would show up after being on the road for a month and there would be two new little fish in the tank. I found at first the broods were smaller with a higher mortality rate. My earliest spawns would boast two to three survivors by the 1/2 to 3/4 inch size. Now I see as many as eight to a spawn.  In all of my years as a keeper and enthusiast I never saw the babies smaller than 3/8", unless of course I picked up their cave. It seemed by 1/2 inch they were allowed out of the cave regularly however if they strayed too far one of the parents would usher them back to their territory. The next significant milestone seemed to be about 3/4" at which point they were expelled from the cave yet still welcome in the territory. Keep in mind, that the parents cave was a hole in a piece of lava rock and their territory was a lava rock that occupied about 20 square inches of tank bottom. While the parents would allow these fry to go as far as they wanted there were several occasions where I witnessed the parents kicking into gear when the S. fryeri would threaten the older fry. However when the fry hit 1 - 1.25 inches the parents would become more hostile, no longer allowing the fry in their territory.

The parents are rather secretive with their broods. Over six years I witnessed only one spawning. The female would lay a few eggs on the ceiling and then switch spots with the male so he could fertilize them. They would do this a few times over several minutes and that was it. I never did get to see the eggs however my postmortem on my female revealed that she was indeed a she.

An interesting observation in my tank is the assimilation of the parents last brood into the brood of an accidental brother sister pair that formed. So while there was hostility between the original pair and this new formed pair the broods have accepted each other and the younger pair has not discouraged it. Over time the new pair was killed off by the original pair and the brood was fully assimilated. I personally wonder if the assimilation of the other brood was a natural mechanism bent on genetic diversity or one based on the genetic similarity. This begs the question, if the two broods were more genetically diverse would the parents have allowed the assimilation? That tangent aside many changes were in my tank's future.

The first major change after the death of my female was marked change in my alpha male. His stripes became faded and spotty and his aggression grew. Eventually his behavior mellowed out and he appeared more normal visually, this was about the time I noticed he had formed a pair with one of his offspring. His choice was interesting as I would have expected him to choose one of the more mature females and he instead picked a female I would have classified as still juvenile. Shortly after the pairing I was presented with my second chance to capture a spawning on film. The spawning was a failure due in part to her age and inexperience. However as you can see the recording of the activity yielded a couple decent results. Eventually, third time I believe, they were successful and once again the fry flowed forth. An interesting note was their survival rate was right up there with the previous pair.  I would attribute this to his experience caring for the young and the lack of my S. fryeri who had passed on by this time.

To this day my Julies are still thriving, despite the many tank changes and bumbling mistakes on my part. I have and still continue to enjoy having them and occasionally find myself watching in awe as these little sleek missiles exhibit maneuvering skills that can only be genetic. The speed and proximity with which they navigate an environment that would leave a larger more clumsy Cichlid in tatters is truly amazing. To see them dig out their cave one little mouthful at a time until there is a 1 cup mound of sand outside the front door. One can not truly do their character justice with words, they are merely a species that every one should try once in their hobbyist life time no matter their experience level.