UK rams

Basically if two of them are hanging around together, fighting the others but not each other then it's a pair. The extended rays of the male in wild rams isn't a very good indication in captive bred rams especially the different colour forms because they could well have some long finned genes in them. The purple bellies in some of the photos says female, 2 of them look male but like I said behaviour is the best indicator The one in the photo on its own looks male

The easiest way to tell is by behaviour. Are they pairing up? Looking at the photos I would say there are a couple of males but it's really hard to tell with black rams from photos.

Hello everyone. Could anyone tell me at what size do bleeding hearts show sexual dimorphism? I am wanting to buy some to breed but they aren't fully grown and all look female as none have the long sickle shaped fin of the male. I would say they are about half adult size. I don't mind buying a group of youngsters if there's a chance they are males and females but we all know some wholesalers like to sell just one sex of certain fish so we can't breed them. I don't want to buy a group of one sex

There are temperature resistant strains of ich so I wouldn't put it too high. It's all about disruption of the life cycle. You can't touch the adult parasite "spots" with anything but you don't need to as they only live for a short while to release the next general into the water. You want to kill the free swimming stage. Raising the temperature merely speeds the lifecycle up. Temperature 77-80 for a week along with meds shouldn't be too stressful. If this does nothing I doubt it's ich When I say merely speeds the lifecycle up, that's what you want so it dies quicker. At temperature under 75 it can take a couple or more weeks, temperature above this and yiu should see improvement in a matter of days

I have never used salt with Corys but I would tend to agree it's probably not true but I haven't tried it and don't think I ever will just in case. The internet also says Corys are sensitive to copper medication but I have used it with zero problems and the same with clown loach. I've had my clown loach for ten years plus and the tank has been medicated more than once

I have kept and bred fish for 30 years and ich is not difficult to deal with. The parasite on the fish do not live a long life and are buried in the skin, salt, medication or temperature will have no effect. You only need to kill the free swimming larvae in the water and medication alone will do that. If medication alone doesn't then it probably isn't ich. It not just about stressing the fish directly (which doing all 3 will do) but also about the nitrogen cycle. Putting too many meds in the tank could well reduce your bacteria and it simply isn't needed.

There's no need for all three of those under any circumstances as it will stress the fish and do more harm than good. Ich is easy enough to deal with, sometimes raising the temperature alone can get rid of it. You certainly shouldn't add salt with corydoyas

Cory's are fine with medication, it's just salt you have to be weary of

Are you certain it's ich? There are other diseases with white spots though ich is a common one

Here's a good photo of zebra danio fry growth. Notice the shape and colour (Almost clear until they start getting stripes) and the body is much shorter in tiger barbs. If you look from where the belly ends to where the tail starts you can really see the difference

These are tiger barbs mate well done. Much better photos. Fry become free swimming 3-5 days after hatching (which takes 24-36 hours after laying) for most egg laying fish so the time frame isn't unusual at all. Is the tank bare bottom? If so that could well be the reason for the small numbers as the eggs could of been eaten The photo isn't clear enough for an ID but zebra danios and tiger barbs are typical egg scatterers. They do not live in places that are likely to dry out so it highly unlikely danio eggs would survive drought like killifish would, some of the latter actually need drying out for months before hatching. Did you use the same tank? Did the tank dry out in between? How long between the spawns? And how long after you removed the tiger barbs before you noticed the fry? Without this information I'm going to say probably tiger barbs. Just because tiger barbs are bigger doesn't mean the fry will be. Rummy nose tetra for example have bigger fry than much larger fish and they grow really quickly

The photo isn't clear enough for an ID but zebra danios and tiger barbs are typical egg scatterers. They do not live in places that are likely to dry out so it highly unlikely danio eggs would survive drought like killifish would, some of the latter actually need drying out for months before hatching. Did you use the same tank? Did the tank dry out in between? How long between the spawns? And how long after you removed the tiger barbs before you noticed the fry? Without this information I'm going to say probably tiger barbs. Just because tiger barbs are bigger doesn't mean the fry will be. Rummy nose tetra for example have bigger fry than much larger fish and they grow really quickly

How long did you have them before this started to happen? Have you put any medication in the tank while they were in there or previously and what meds were they? I'm going to assume the parameters are right as you bred and raised some so I'm thinking parasite or poisoning. Have any other fish had any symptoms?

I have bred rams for a number of years. The only thing to do in this situation IMO is put the other pair in with them. They might well get the bond back due to a common enemy (as long as they don't wife swop which could also happen) then separate them once this happens. I know this reply is a bit late but I've only just joined the group. Hope this helps or you've already sorted it