Julidochromis sp. "Gombi"
by Patrick Miller
Jan/Feb 2007, Issue #38
At the October 2006 GVAC auction I purchased a breeding pair of Julidochromis sp “Gombi”. Besides being African Cichlids and being cool looking fish, I knew pretty much nothing about them. Today I am glad I purchased them before I read the November article from Practical Fishkeeping “Marital Rifts”. The article may have scared me away from attempting to breed them which I first successfully did the week of Thanksgiving 2006.
The article talks about how hard it is to get these fish to breed even if you have a breeding pair. That once you have a pair changing anything in the tank may upset the fish and cause them to Divorce. I didn’t find this to be the case.
I
know that I have only breed one pair
of these fish and they were a breeding pair when I acquired them but my
experience with this fish is much different than I would have expected by
reading the
Practical
Fishkeeping article.
My fish were housed in a moderately well planted tank. That is to say that most
of the plants were small at the time and the tank was relatively new. The tank
was a 29 gallon planted with
Valisinaria, Sagittaria
subulata and
Hygrophila corymbosa
with other plants being added
later. It also had a small cave structure made from a few pieces of lava rock
and slate on the far left of the tank. About a week after the auction I put a
stone with holes drilled thought it on top of the existing cave to provide more
places for the fish to explore. The filtration was through a sponge filter. The
temperature of the tank was kept at 74-77deg, all that the 50 watt heater could
manage in a basement with an air temperature of about 65deg.
The food for the first couple of weeks consisted of Cichlid pellets twice a day supplemented with frozen bloodworms every few days. After a few weeks of this regimen I reversed the types of food and fed the bloodworms twice a day and supplemented them with Cichlid pellets once every two to three days. They liked the latter menu much better.
The first water change was made two weeks after I purchased the fish. The water was straight from the Grand Rapids City supply but was aged for two days. The water change consisted of 5 gallons and the temperature of the new water added to the tank was about 65deg. The next water change was carried out using the same method and was done the Monday before Thanksgiving.
The Friday after Thanksgiving was when I first noticed fry in the cave and eggs on the roof of the cave. I was so concerned that the snails in the cave would eat the eggs that I took the cave apart and pulled out as many of the snails as I could. The first batch contained somewhere between 5-12 fry, on the roof of the cave were six eggs and several of the fry didn’t move from their location even when I turned the piece of slate over to remove the snails. In the weeks that followed similar sized batches of fry could be seen on the floor and roof of the main cave. These new batches of fry coincided with the water changes that were done.
About 1 week after I noticed the first fry I purchased some Texas hole rock. I put one piece in the tank next to the existing cave to give the fry places to escape to if needed. A week after this I added another piece of rock to help define the planted section of the tank and the non planted section of the tank. The fry never seemed to take advantage of the hiding places afforded to them by the Texas rock.
It is a good thing that fish don’t read books or magazine articles because I never would have been able to breed these great fish if they did. All fish are different and it seems that you need to take a grain of salt with everything that you read. I hope you try these fish and wish you good luck in your efforts.
The End