German Blue Rams

Hello all,

I finally managed to get some good quality rams at my LFS.
I've had very bad experiences with these guys before, some bad stock made it's way to SA and they tended to arrive with internal parasites as a free extra.

So far these guys are going strong, I've had them just over a month and they are just awesome to watch.

I thought I'd share some pics
Male picking around my glosso plants:

Female picking on a anubius:

The pair checking each other out(male at the back):


I really like these guys, awesome characters...

Regards
Martin

 

Very cool fish. I've just purchased 5, what suspect are all male Bolivian Rams, and I can only agree that they are interesting to watch.
hope they spawn for you soon.

 

Excellent colouration! I have not seen a pink bellied female in ages!

 

Yes, thanks Sash, I got lucky, I picked up 2 females and the one male. The other female is in the same tank and trying to mind her own business. She is obviously being chased around by the other two, especially by the male (because he is spoiled for choice LOL) and has stress patterns showing but the belly is still pink.

I'll probably move the outsider once the other 2 spawn.

 

Hi guys,
@23skyline

Very nice rams. Lovely colour on the male and the female is also looking great. That pink belly means she is ready to spawn.

One bit of advise - this is not your fault, its LPS bad feeding - they are a tad on the skinny side. Dont feed high protein food but try and increase their feeding a bit. Maybe feed them 4 times a day and try and include some frozen Brine shrimp and frozen bloodworm, this will fatten them up a bit and they'd be even prettier.

Regards

Marco

 

Hi guys,
@23skyline

Very nice rams. Lovely colour on the male and the female is also looking great. That pink belly means she is ready to spawn.

One bit of advise - this is not your fault, its LPS bad feeding - they are a tad on the skinny side. Dont feed high protein food but try and increase their feeding a bit. Maybe feed them 4 times a day and try and include some frozen Brine shrimp and frozen bloodworm, this will fatten them up a bit and they'd be even prettier.

Regards

Marco

 

Yep! Saw a post somewhere with some of your rams @Marco. Now those were thick and well fed!

 

Thanks for the tips guys, will get them fat soon!
@Marco, I just found your post about the massive spawn you had, how did the fry tun out, Blue or normal GBR colour?

 

Hi @23skyline

Ah tx for asking. They all just normal GBR in this first generation. Electric blue is just a line bred form of GBR so even in F2 Id expect mostly GBR but with some good blue coverage.
My idea behind this however was to get the GBR blood, with good parental skills into the EB line. Also to improve the overall EB shape to a more bulky/stocky shape. The EB's are terrible parents in general and although my original ones raised their fry without problems, the subsequent offspring were extremely aggressive and useless in breeding.

My intention now is to breed the original EB line to this crossed offspring and hopefully have better parental skills and less aggression.

Just for interest sake - that batch of fry eventually sold out to 523 offspring exactly. That excludes culls and also excludes fish I kept back for my own stock.
Id venture a guess that it mustve amounted to approximately 600 fry in total. That is an incredible amount!
Not easy to raise, feed, maintain water quality and then eventually sell on....

Im mot keen on another batch of that size.

Regards

Marco

 

@Marco Very interesting, I think the 3 I bought must've been from that massive spawn, when did you supply them to Loolilocks?

I should probably take out my current females and replace them with some from a later batch with different parents, what is your opinion on this? I'm not planning on breeding them (they are in community tanks) but I'm sure there will be spawns and I don't really like keeping that sort of thing in the family LOL

Still amazed that such a small fish even has the space for 600 eggs, that must be the equivalent of octuplets in humans, wow.

What are you using to lower your PH, I suppose you'd be using RO?

Regards
Martin

 

hi which local pet shop did you purchase them from I would like to get some

 

Hi.

From loolilocks in Boksburg

 

Managed to get a better pic of my male:

 

Finally after about 8 unsuccessful spawns there are wrigglers.

After switching to 50/50 RO and tap water changes it seems that my water parameters are better for spawning(thanks to the advice from fellow members on the forum).

Normally my rams would spawn and the next morning the eggs were gone, eaten by the female. These guys spawned again on Friday afternoon and yesterday the fist wrigglers appeared. They spawned on a small flat rock as usual and the pair started to move the wrigglers to a hollowed out piece of wood.

So far I've counted about 30 that I could see, they are hidden pretty well.
This is the female, the 3 grey dots below her tail on the wood are wrigglers.


Here are some shots of the proud dad:




Regards
Martin

 

Nice one Martin.... Holding thumbs that they make it. What are you going to feed them?

 

I will try my hand at baby brine shrimp, I have some, will set up a hatchery soon.

I only hope that the BBS doesn't attract all the other fish to the fry when I feed them LOL

 

It will, but the whole tank will be swimming with bbs. Maybe feed the normal fare at the same time, to buy some time for the fry.

 

Hi @23skyline

Well done! Im real happy for you
Take a large syringe and add a piece of airline tubing to the front. Rinse your freshly hatched bbs and put them in a small container with some tank water. Suck up this solution into the syringe, insert the pipe to just above the fry and slowly squirt the bbs over them. This will enable them to get to the bbs first and have a good meal before it gets dospersed all over the tank.

Hope it helps

Marco

 

Hello all,

Thanks for the tips and suggestions.

Unfortunately the fry didn't make it to the free swimming stage, they where pretty exposed in the middle of the tank on the wood...

On the plus side, the pair spawned again last night, they always spawn at about 5pm.

Hopefully this time the female will help a bit more. The poor male has to watch the eggs while she runs off eating, then she returns to the eggs and the male goes to try and eat but after about 2 seconds she calls him back to the eggs and she goes on the prowl again...real b!tch LOL.

I'm quite keen to see if they move the wrigglers to the same spot as the last batch because they always spawn on the same rock so maybe they are creatures of habit...

Here's an older pic of where they spawn (flat rock on the left) and where they moved the wriggles (wood in the middle).


Still waiting for the carpet plants to carpet, might change them to HM from Glosso.


Regards
Martin

 

Haha... In her defense, she did lay the eggs! I'd also be a tad peckish. I'm sure they'll eventually get it right.