If you have never kept Julidochromis species (or julies as they’re commonly called), you are truly missing out on some great behaviors. And the dickfeldi species, in my opinion, is a great representative of the genus. Why?
Let’s start with a couple of behaviors you probably wouldn’t expect from these wonderful little fish.
They dig in the substrate, at least sand. That’s right. If you have a sand substrate, even with ample rock work, they’ll dig. My colony resides in a ~45 gallon with a white sand substrate. As you can see in the photos below, there is a round, ceramic cave near the front of the tank where they have dug a tunnel underneath. I even have several 6″ square travertine tiles on the sand, which they’ve dug under too. You can see both part of a tile and the cave in the photo. Also note the pile of sand near the holey rock against the glass. Why have they dug out under the cave? No idea, unless they want to “customize” their territory. The substrate is the only thing in the tank they can move.
What else do they do that is a bit unique? They don’t like a “dirty house.” I utilize several open and closed-end ceramic, rectangular caves in my julie tanks. I have personally witnessed a female dickfeldi exit one of the closed-end caves and, with her mouth, eject a fair amount of detritus. I can only conclude she was removing waste from the cave, preparing to spawn. I have never witnessed this in any other species during my fish keeping career.
Dickfeldi fry, like other julies, love to hang vertically and upside down, against rocks and other aquarium objects. I have witnessed julie fry completely inverted under a rock ledge. This is phenomenal behavior to witness because few other cichlids do this. The julie genus, which are rock dwellers in their native habitat, are cave spawners and fry will orient themselves at all angles while they stick close to objects. I have seen them hang vertically both head down and head up while clinging to stacked rocks. They’ll even stick to rocks sideways (belly side toward the rock). Though I have witnessed adults do this too, it is a more common behavior with the fry. This behavior is not unique to dickfeldi, but adds to their appeal, in my opinion.
What is another reason to keep dickfeldi? They’re easy to breed and very prolific. It takes little effort to get a pair to spawn. Usually, just a cave of some kind or some hole tucked away in a stack of rocks is all that is needed. I have had mutilple pairs produce hundreds and hundreds of fry. Though brood sizes aren’t large by some cichlid standards, it’s not uncommon for females to lay 50 eggs or more every 8-10 weeks. At least that has been my experience.
I have blogged about my dickfeldi many times. Just do a search for them in the search box, and you’ll get plenty more information.