Dominant Female deppii will display a dark dorsal blotch
Herichthys deppii is found on the Atlantic slope, Nautla and Misantla River basins, in North Mexico. Reported habitats are slow to fast moving water with lots of rocks / boulders with a stone / sandy substrate. I would imagine that plants are rarely encountered, except marginal. No other cichlids are reported to live sympatric with deppii apart from possible Paratheraps sp. cf. fenestratus, Gobies, Poecilia sp and Agonostomus monticola( mountain mullet).
Aquarium setup, care and experience.
I had the pleasure to keep this cichlid back in the middle of 2009. Easily sexed from a small size, i decided to buy a male and female. Probably not the best way to get a bonded sexed pair, as most keepers would buy a group of at least six fish. Young saleable sized fish are a light colour with a yellow / green hue. Six dark blotches are displayed from the base of the caudal to just below the middle of the flanks. Subtle orange dappling will start to develop on the operculum, which is very characteristic feature of the fish.
As they grow, the base colour of the body develops into a green / blue colour. H. deppii will attain sizes of 8 inch-20cm( Male), 6 inch – 15cm( female). Young fish can be very similar looking to Herichthys sp. turquoise. Sp. turquoise in my opinion display less orange markings around the head area, but appear to display a more orange patterning in the dorsal and caudal fins. Of interest, it was believed that all 2009 stocks of deppii available to the hobby were sourced from Rio Bobos. In fact they were collected from Rio Misantla, this I doubled checked with Rusty Wessel. The recommended minimum size to house a pair would be in the region of 120 x 50 x 50cm. The tank setup I used was a large tank. Dimensions 8ft, 2ft, 3ft 240 x 60 x 90cmwide, which was currently setup as a general Central American Cichlid community. The tank was decorated with play-pit sand substrate and large rocks and pebbles.
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