Best ways to breed bolivian rams

[EndlersBoi]

I’m starting a Bolivian ram tank in a 30 gallon, whats the best way to breed them? Make to female ratio? Water temp/food? Etc… very curious about these guys.

thanks!

[Fish Folk]

On 6/27/2021 at 11:19 PM, EndlersBoi said:

I’m starting a Bolivian ram tank in a 30 gallon, whats the best way to breed them? Make to female ratio? Water temp/food? Etc… very curious about these guys.

thanks!

The answer may need to be tailor-made to your style, resources, preferences , experience, etc.

At minimum, you need a confirmed, mature pair in good health. Most breeders will invest in 6-9 fish of the same species to raise up together, and watch for spawning pairs to form.

Here is a long post on another forum on sexing and spawning Bolivians.

Perhaps @mountaintoppufferkeeper could weigh in with input, having found some Bolivian fry recently — see this thread.

Best of luck to you! I’d love to try Bolivians some day. 

[mountaintoppufferkeeper]

I started with 5 tank raised adult bolivian rams. I placed all in a 26x18x13 tank to form a pair. 74 degrees, some plants, little bit of sand substrate, lightly planted with floating and moss, clay saucers, and coconut huts. I feed a variety of pellet, vibra , live baby brine, frozen bloodworms, frozen tubifex worms, krill flake, spriulina flake. The live bbs is generally very helpful, in my conditions, to trigger spawning in adults. Pair formed from the group, my female was smaller with a square breeding tube while the male had a basically pointy tube and was larger than his mate. Minus the conditioned pair breeding tubes and behavior together I have no idea how to determine male and female they all look excellent but also pretty much the same to me. My pair spawned on the outside of a coconut hut and guarded the eggs and fry well for 2 weeks. I had to remove the other rams to a new tank to get a 2nd pair to form. Next batch I will try pulling fry at 7 days for better monitoring of food intake and growth. Fun project good luck with them i think just a big enough group, stable parameters, good food, patience and time and you'll have great success

[EndlersBoi]

On 6/27/2021 at 9:59 PM, mountaintoppufferkeeper said:

I started with 5 tank raised adult bolivian rams. I placed all in a 26x18x13 tank to form a pair. 74 degrees, some plants, little bit of sand substrate, lightly planted with floating and moss, clay saucers, and coconut huts. I feed a variety of pellet, vibra , live baby brine, frozen bloodworms, frozen tubifex worms, krill flake, spriulina flake. The live bbs is generally very helpful, in my conditions, to trigger spawning in adults. Pair formed from the group, my female was smaller with a square breeding tube while the male had a basically pointy tube and was larger than his mate. Minus the conditioned pair breeding tubes and behavior together I have no idea how to determine male and female they all look excellent but also pretty much the same to me. My pair spawned on the outside of a coconut hut and guarded the eggs and fry well for 2 weeks. I had to remove the other rams to a new tank to get a 2nd pair to form. Next batch I will try pulling fry at 7 days for better monitoring of food intake and growth. Fun project good luck with them i think just a big enough group, stable parameters, good food, patience and time and you'll have great success

Thank you!

are the breeding tubes located where a gonopodium would be located? Also are you feeding the Bolivians when they guard the eggs? Also were there anyother fish in the tank? I.e. dither fish, corys, plecos etc? Last question, what’s your preferred method of removing fry and what size tank do you grow them out in? Thanks again.

Edited June 28, 2021 by EndlersBoi

[mountaintoppufferkeeper]

 

On 6/28/2021 at 8:15 AM, EndlersBoi said:

Thank you!

are the breeding tubes located where a gonopodium would be located? Also are you feeding the Bolivians when they guard the eggs? Also were there anyother fish in the tank? I.e. dither fish, corys, plecos etc? Last question, what’s your preferred method of removing fry and what size tank do you grow them out in? Thanks again.

Added photo showing the tube location on my currently non-conditioned female. Basically when they are in condition its super obvious but otherwise tougher to tell. The one with the arrow pointing to the tube is my female of the pair who bred for me.

 I really just get a general idea of average conditions for a fish and go for it and did that with the B rams. My current strategy for pretty much everything i keep is get a good size starter group, let them mature and pair off and work regularly to figure out the fish needs in my system as I go.  There are so many variables to work with individual fish behaviors within the group, seasonal condition fluctuations in natural light through windows, air pressure, aquarium decor layout and type, plants, foods, etc. Cracking the code to get them pairing of courting and hopefully spawning within my aquariums is most of the enjoyment for me. 

My personal process is to just feed the Bolivians normally throughout. The parents appear to switch off in my set up where one would fan and guard while the other would patrol and occasionally feed. Mine would swap roles constantly. For the first week there were 3 other rams in the tank. I moved the other rams out and made another pair from those 3. I typically try to use the smallest dithers I can get in every tank im attempting breeding so that they know its safe enough for fry. Usually that is a trio group of blackchin livebearers or sometimes adolescent X.variatus platys. My guess is the Bolivians would beat up any bottom dweller pretty good when defending a spawn. Mine essentially bulldozer snails to the other side of the tank if they get too close to the spawn. 

I typically see more attentive parental care and a stronger pair bond in my cichlids if there is something they can defend eggs and fry against. A percieved common enemy with minimal actual risk to the parents or spawn. Id assume whatever tank you have and whatever method you prefer to grow out fry would work once you figure out your best process for your setup.

My fry tank options are between 1 and 9 gallons for fry holding and growing out. They vary from 2 inches deep to 10 inches deep. The are quick connect fittings on the overflow side so can be swapped out for deeper tanks easily as the fry grow.  Since I normally run the fry tank as a piece of my rack system they  grow in 85 to 95 gallons water volume with tbe benefit of that water stability and biological filtration capacity. If i did stand alone glass tanks i would probably try for a 20 long for fry grow out.

I usually direct most fish and fry into basically a specimen container with a net then release into the fry tank vs netting them out and messing with slime coats or causing damage and stress. The Bolivians seem very hardy after they settled out in my system. Im not an expert in the bolivians by any measure but that was my process which resulted in fry for me.