German Blue Ram Breeding Journal

[Fish Folk]

With the fishroom still behind on bbs after the bad batch, earlier today, I fed them from a Sera O-nip tab that was ground to powder in my mortar & pestle.

Thus eve I fed the GBR fry a touch of New Life Spectrum GROW fry starter powder. The smallest amount imaginable.

Here’s a short video showing a few of them nibbling at it — the tiny specs slowly sinking down through the water...

 

[Fish Folk]

Also, I’ll forego a water change tonight. To combat any ammonia, I’ve added one developed water lettuce crown with a long tap root.

[Fish Folk]

Ok. I tried to walk away, but the adult pair are seriously looking interested in spawning again. I did a water change today, and have been feeding them generously. Here’s a short video showing her tube dropped, and his interest.

It seems like she can’t find a spot where she feels comfortable enough to lay her eggs. The rock where they laid last time is now “distracted” by motion of fry overhead.

And for whatever reason... she has not warmed up to the placement of the other stone I put in there

Maybe the heater is too close for comfort? Maybe reflection is disturbing? Maybe flow doesn’t feel right to her? Who knows.

So, I’m eyeing the front left. There’s a potentially good spot there.

I move the stone... I turn the light timer off... and I quietly step away...

[Patrick_G]

The suspense! 

[Fish Folk]

No breeding between adults last night. No idea why either.

I decided to snap a photo a count the fry.

I count at least 89 fry. Kind of made my day!

Here’s a 30 sec. proof of life video...

 

Edited July 7, 2021 by Fish Folk

[Ben C.]

They're so cute!

[Fish Folk]

(Warning! Long, rambling journal entry . . . )

Hard to believe, but it's only been ca. 11 days since these fry have been free-swimming. There is a general benchmark set for fry at 30 days whereafter their survival rate is considered highly probable. At 30 days, for example, fry can be counted and submitted for most Breeder's Award Programs at local fish clubs.

Now, as a breeder, it is important to think ahead. In a sense . . . you want to think through much of the life-span and development of your fish. Like most all creative or engineering endeavors, you want to build the thing in your mind before you build it in reality. Here's what that looks like in my mind:

(1) Grow fry out in specimen container for one month, slowly adding tank water

(2) Move fry over to net breeders suspended in tank water for next stage of grow out - ca. month #2

(3) Move fry to grow out in a tank of their own for month #3-4, depending on size - or disperse between several tanks

(4) Collect Rams into a large, permanent growout colony with discus - Geophagus must be moved out by this time

(5) Once they begin spawning in the discus tank, they can be sold to LFS, sold at Fish Club, or sold online (mo. #5-6)

(6) As the Rams increase in size and can be evaluated for genetic traits, their sale-value can be priced accordingly

Basically, this gets us into the winter of 2022.

Now, to move through step #1, I've devised a little chart (apologies for the small print). This represents 1x water change on the fry container per day.

Basically, I estimate that my container is holding ca. 1,600 ml. A 1/2 US gallon Lee's Large specimen container can hold nearly 1,892 ml. But since I do not fill completely, and since I have submersed sponge filter also displacing some water volume, I think 1,600 ml. is a good basic guess. In the chart, the vertical columns represent days, starting with today, through the end of July. The horizontal rows correspond to 100 ml. units. The orange cells indicate water within the specimen container that is always growing in waste, as fish and snails leave droppings, food decays, etc. The blue cells indicate water from R. O. bottled water changes. The green cells show increasing tank water to be used in water changes. So, for example, today -- the leftmost column -- I will be changing out with the full 16 oz. of bottled R. O. water, but additionally changing out 100 ml. more of specimen container water, and replacing with 100 ml. of cycled tank water.

The purpose for this is to slowly acclimate fry to the cycled tap water from our aquarium. It has a lot of different properties, and needs to be mixed in slowly so that they can adjust to it.

Now, bear in mind that these fry are still very, very small. They are not even as small as newly born guppy fry, if you can believe that...

This means that what may be "small" to my thinking can be HUGE to their experience. "Add a little of this . . . remove a little of that" can be a gigantic change for them at this stage.

I added another rams-horn snail to help with cleanup. Basically, the snail eats extra food, and leaves droppings from it that are much easier to draw out when I do daily cleanup / water change.

Now, the tank should get a proper cleanup to prepare for increased daily water transfers over to the fry container. There is cyanbacteria building up in the 20-gal long. I'll need to go through manually, and draw out as much of that as possible. Water changes will need to be consistent. I'll need to be cautious about over feeding as well.

I will plan to add a new, small plant to the fry container each week for the next three weeks to naturally filter water for the fry. I'm always concerned about ammonia spikes.

Now . . . as for the adults . . . my vision has been to move them outside to a mini pond to see if they'll succeed raising their own fry out there. I must admit, I'm having the worst time with my ponds this year. One week the cold killed a batch of guppies. Then, a few weeks later, high heat choked out another batch. I am not sure if I have any left in the two guppy ponds. Additionally, the addition of a heater to the prospective Ram tub has caused water to evaporate much faster off the top, necessitating top-offs.

All of which to say . . . Unless I can really dial my mini ponds in better, I'll more than likely be pulling another GBR spawn from their current tank before I see how they do outside. While I honestly don't mind risking fish to some degree in experimental procedures . . . I want to eliminate as many obvious failure points as possible first. If that tub water is going to be soaring over 100-degrees F every day, then just no. Can't do that. I fully realize that I ought to have these buried in the ground. But somehow, I can't bring myself to that yet. For now, I'm just going to try to get the water clean, stable, and get the plants looking healthier. It may be that the Rams won't go outside at all this summer.

On another front entirely, there are several projects that correspond to raising Rams (and a handful of other species) that I'm working on. 

(1) Shipping fish successfully. I've managed with a good start. Bought "long life" breathing bags on Amazon. They are designed so that O2 can transfer through the bag from outside, but CO2 can move from inside out. Basically, no air needs to be kept in the bag. As long as they are cushioned with newspaper in shipping, allowing space for air to pass through, they're much better than normal plastic bags for shipping fish. I was successful shipping some fish recently to a customer. The fish were delayed in the mail, and took 6 full days to arrive. But they did fine in the breathing bags! 

I've also found that my local Mail Room saves a lot of styros from folks who receive regular medical orders -- particularly insulin. These are perfect for most shipments, and the box and styro can be purchased for a reasonable set fee that makes shipping costs easy to calculate.

(2) Setting up online accounts. As I look towards moving mature Rams eventually, I'm getting all sorted out with PayPal, and familiarizing myself with online sales sites like Aquabid, GetGills, as well as Craigslist and eBay.

I prefer to sell locally. But reality is that Fish Stores really need a strong reason to justify paying retail prices for fish that they need to mark up 200%. Unless there's major scarcity, it's far easier to make money ordering in 50 fish from a fish farm, deal with 30% die off, sell at 200% wholesale cost, and still make a touch of profit than it is to buy 12 fish from a local breeder for retail price, and sell for 120%. In reality, if the customer base was more experienced, in search of better quality, etc then locally bred fish would be in higher demand. But honestly, out here in hillbilly land . . . that's not happening.

Selling at auction over in D.C. at our fish club can be a real mint. In the greater metro area, where a 2 bedroom 2 bathroom 998 square foot condo can sell for $300,000 . . . a single pair of Rams can sometimes go for $30-$40 at club auction. Contrast that with the $3 that I get per adult Ram selling to an LFS.

In addition to Rams, I've got about 250-300 Electric Blue Acaras that will need to be sold. So . . . figuring out selling online and shipping is a real must.

Edited July 7, 2021 by Fish Folk

[Fish Folk]

Added several small plant cuttings: Rotala Indica, Guppy Grass, Wisteria

Also added a single additional alder cone

Water changed according to plan. 100 ml. of cycled tank water added along with 16 oz. R.O. sourced water.

Also fed live bbs. THE SPICE MUST FLOW.

[Hobbit]

@Fish Folk which direction are you from DC? If you live north of DC, I may be able to point you to a LFS up near philly that buys basically only locally bred fish.

[Fish Folk]

On 7/8/2021 at 5:25 PM, Hobbit said:

@Fish Folk which direction are you from DC? If you live north of DC, I may be able to point you to a LFS up near philly that buys basically only locally bred fish.

Thanks! We’re a ways west, over in far western MD — hillbilly country. Feel free to send me a private message about that. 

Edited July 8, 2021 by Fish Folk

[Hobbit]

Message sent!

[Fish Folk]

Just looking at the Ram breeding tank. Everyone complains that male rams with high dorsal front rays are hard to find. I think the issue is most people / places do not feed them quality foods that bring out their best growth. Here’s our male. His fins have really grown!

[Fish Folk]

There is a fairly irritating infestation of Hydra going on in the specimen container. Each evening’s water change, I try to scrape a bunch out. But once bbs are a major staple food, they’re everywhere soon.

 

[Ben C.]

Have the same problem with hydras after feeding BBS regularly, especially in my newer tanks. Becomes an eye sore honestly...

 

Question, if you mix a normal ram with an electric blue, what happens?

[Fish Folk]

On 7/9/2021 at 10:44 PM, benchilton said:

Question, if you mix a normal ram with an electric blue, what happens?

Ok. In brief, if you’re lucky enough to raise a healthy brood, _some_ can turn out like this... (photo of ram from Canadian breeder lit with blue fluorescent lighting)

Now, here’s a brief personal Ram genetics / color morph testimonial. We crossed an electric blue male with a gold female. The offspring were “Opal.” Some were blue-Opal, and others were gold-Opal.  But when they matured and crossed back in, the _grandfish_ of the original e-blue + gold pair were out of this world.

So here’s a video of the 2nd gen. opals (with a few normal and some blue frost rams)... my son narrating

And here’s another video featuring the matured Gold-Opals... (son also narrating)

And here’s two videos featuring the fry from Blue-Opal cross...

(in the next one, my younger boy is yawning 😂)

Anyway, this shakes out in a color-morph tree like this, with original parents at the top...

So, there’s room to selectively breed Rams. It’s just a challenge to dial in their needs until they’re about 10x weeks old. From there, they can be raised in community set ups.

I probably already shared this before on this journal thread, but here’s my son feeding black worms to our fish - in the first two minutes, look at the Golden Rams to get a sense of how the _grandfish_ on the Golden-Opal side came out when crossed back together. 

 

[Ben C.]

Those gold opals are so beautiful! Thank you for the detailed response...I have this beaut here, and was thinking to get a mate but wasn't sure if I wanted to try crossing or just keep it pure. Guess I will see what the stores have! 

[Fish Folk]

On 7/10/2021 at 1:30 PM, benchilton said:

Those gold opals are so beautiful! Thank you for the detailed response...I have this beaut here, and was thinking to get a mate but wasn't sure if I wanted to try crossing or just keep it pure. Guess I will see what the stores have! 

It’s difficult to sex the eblues. That one _may_ be a male, guessing from his 2nd lobe on the dorsal... but it’s just hard to know.

[Ben C.]

On 7/10/2021 at 3:05 PM, Fish Folk said:

It’s difficult to sex the eblues. That one _may_ be a male, guessing from his 2nd lobe on the dorsal... but it’s just hard to know.

Yeah, I got it as a juvenile almost 9 months ago now, and everything to this point has indicated it's a female, shorter body, pointed face, rounded dorsal fin, short ventral fins. And now recently the dorsal has just taken off, gotten much longer. Who knows. I bought it because the store had no normal blue rams at the time, even though it was my second choice, and it has grown on me!

[Fish Folk]

On 7/10/2021 at 9:22 PM, benchilton said:

Yeah, I got it as a juvenile almost 9 months ago now, and everything to this point has indicated it's a female, shorter body, pointed face, rounded dorsal fin, short ventral fins. And now recently the dorsal has just taken off, gotten much longer. Who knows. I bought it because the store had no normal blue rams at the time, even though it was my second choice, and it has grown on me!

I find that putting a group of 7 in a planted 20 long shows males / females fast!

[Fish Folk]

Today has been a sad day. I saw a couple dead fry early on, sucked them out. And then started seeing more. Something went very wrong. I thought I’d gotten them all. It’s been a busy day, so just now, changing water, I’m realizing how awful it is. I’ve lost at least 1/2 of the fry.

I took out the sponge filter, and thoroughly cleaned it off. I decide to change 32 Oz. with R. O. Bottled water. No tank water tonight.

Factors are many. Perhaps a few died, and ammonia / ammonium went sky high? Or maybe the hydra are getting some at night? Could a batch of BBS have been decaying? Maybe the tank water doesn’t settle well yet? Or maybe a plant brought in a pathogen?

All I can think to do is change water, feed, and keep up the upkeep.

*sigh*

Edited July 12, 2021 by Fish Folk

[Hobbit]

Such a bummer when this happens. I hope enough fry pull through that it’s still worth raising them!

[Fish Folk]

On 7/11/2021 at 11:53 PM, Hobbit said:

Such a bummer when this happens. I hope enough fry pull through that it’s still worth raising them!

Yep, it's a bummer. But there's always something new to learn. I think Dean's fry tray system is really brilliant the more I think about it. I keep wondering if it's the hydra. If they're drawing down weak rams, finishing a few off, the ammonia / ammonium spike would easily foul the whole container. Everything was going well. I pulled back on water changes, added 100 ml. tank water per day, and added a few small plants. I think I'll go back to 2-per-day water changes with 16 oz. each, sticking exclusively to R. O. based water, until I see if the rest of the fry make it. A bunch of them looked really weak. 

[Tarsas]

Sorry to hear that! Been following this thread. Perhaps you can temporarily move the fry to another container and use a fish in the container that will voraciously eat the hydra? I raise Mollies and let's just say you never have to worry about any other pests than snails in a tank with mollies. They love some good hydra.  

On a side note, I'm pretty sure my largest molly has developed a taste for snail because I cannot figure out who is emptying the contents of the pest snail shells in my tank. 

Edited July 12, 2021 by Tarsas

[Fish Folk]

On 7/12/2021 at 10:44 AM, Tarsas said:

Sorry to hear that! Been following this thread. Perhaps you can temporarily move the fry to another container and use a fish in the container that will voraciously eat the hydra? I raise Mollies and let's just say you never have to worry about any other pests than snails in a tank with mollies. They love some good hydra.  

On a side note, I'm pretty sure my largest molly has developed a taste for snail because I cannot figure out who is emptying the contents of the pest snail shells in my tank. 

Thanks for following along, and also for sharing suggestions! At this point, the Ram fry are too small to share space with any other fish. But moving them to a new, non-hydra-infested specimen container is a possibility. With the BBS I feed, hydra seem to emerge no matter where I feed them.

This morning, they looked healthy and fine on the whole. So, I'll keep up the maintenance and let them grow.

One _possibility_, however unlikely, that I considered . . . maybe adding the 100 ml of tank water each water change _raised_ the pH up past 6.4, at which point ammonium begins to rapidly convert towards ammonia. Just a thought. I'm really not sure.

[Fish Folk]

GBR Fry look Ok tonight. No deaths. I’m out of BBS til tomorrow eve. See if they take to fry powder. Starting to show a tiny bit of finnage.