German Blue Ram Tips

[NOLANANO]

Good Afternoon Fish People,

I plan on getting 5 GBRs this week for my 75G and was looking for any helpful tips for these sometimes finicky fish. My plan is to get 2 M and 3 F. Does this ratio work or should I be getting 1:1 or 1:4?

Tank:

Standard 75G (4 feet across)

Heavily planted. Tons of stem plants and floaters to clean water.

Already in the tank:

3 Pearl Gourami (1M and 2F)

11 Rummynose Tetra

6 Panda Cories

4 Endler Livebearers

1 Panda Gara

1 CPO Dwarf Crawfish

Parameters:

Temp: 82.5 F

PH: 7.5

Nitrites: 0 ppm

Ammonia: 0 ppm

Nitrate: 10 ppm

GH and KH: unknown but I do believe that the water is fairly hard.  I have a decent amount of drift wood in the tank to help soften it some.

 

I have kept Rams on 3 different occasions with varied success. My first pair died within 24 hours of being acclimated and my second pair lasted about a week before succumbing to Ick.  At this point I decided that I was done with rams for a while until I could get a bigger tank (had a 29g at the time).

About a year ago I got my 75G and decided to give the rams a chance again. During my hiatus from rams I search all the LFS and found one that felt pretty confident they could sell me a healthy pair that would last longer than a week so I went there and sure enough the rams did great...For about 3 months. They were doing so great at one point that they even spawned.  But one day the male didn't come out to eat and I found him hiding under a plant breathing heavy. I treated the whole tank with general cure but he succumbed to his sickness despite the effort.  About a week later, the female fell victim to the same symptoms and perished as well. No other fish in the tank ever got sick.

Based on my research I believe that the rams died either of internal parasites or due to stress from me adding new fish to the tank. I don't think it was the parasites because I treated for it and no other fish ever looked or acted abnormal. The new fish that I added that I believe stressed the male literally to death was a small Apisto Borelli that a friend of mine needed to find a home for because he was being picked on in her tank.  The Apisto never bothered any other fish and mostly stayed hidden. AND the female Ram would actually chase the Apisto out of their territory (which was most of the tank) if she saw him. So my only guess is that the Male got stressed by new competition in his territory and died and then the female got stressed her male that she paired with died and also died. Now that the Apisto has passed away, I am trying Rams again.

 

Sorry for the long winded post but I wanted to tell my whole experience with these fish in hopes that someone with more experience can maybe point out my mistakes and I can enjoy these wonderful fish for an extended period of time.

Any tips or critiques from post are most welcomed!

[Chick-In-Of-TheSea]

@Fish Folk @Guppysnail @dasaltemelosguy

[Guppysnail]

I have 2 m 3 f. They seem to be ok. I also have hard water and mine were raised in hard water and I was told will be fine at 78. 
 

They have spawned once. I have only had them a little while so really have no other info to share. 

Edited November 2, 2022 by Guppysnail

[NOLANANO]

On 11/2/2022 at 3:08 PM, Guppysnail said:

I have 2 m 3 f. They seem to be ok. I also have hard water and mine were raised in hard water and I was told will be fine at 78. 
 

They have spawned once. I have only had them a little while so really have no other info to share. 

How did you acclimate? I plan to drip acclimate for an hour or two but I read a post by a guy on some other board who claims that I should only temperature acclimate for 15 minutes and then put the fish in the tank. He claimed that the transfer from the store to your tank and the acclimation process stresses the fish out more than anything and that he finds much more success if he minimizes the time spent acclimating.

Thats literally the only person I have ever heard say that about acclimating so I wanted to see if anyone else thinks there is any truth to his claim? I don't plan to just toss them in unless someone else can corroborate that it will work.

[Fish Folk]

Hi there! So, I've had spent some good time with Rams. One thing I've noticed is that Rams born and raised in your own water generally do much better for you. All major tank changes can be a struggle for them. Con-specific species (e.g. apistos, etc.) may be sources of stress.

Your parameters sound fairly good. That GH / KH thing is sometimes important. Our water is very low KH, which they do like.

As for space and numbers, a 75 gal is loads of room. 2 males / 3 females can be fine. Rams will always want to set up a pecking order. Generally, there will be one dominant male and one dominant female. They'll probably spawn together first. Others can get a washed-out color, or you'll sometimes end up with two clear pairs, and a "third wheel."

I've kept a rambling journal on breeding Rams here on the Forum that you might appreciate. Sorry that it's gotten rather long...

As for acclimation, there are various opinions. I am very careful with temperature acclimation. Fish really need to acclimate slowly. If the temp difference is more than 5-degrees F, I do a very slow, deliberate process of raising temp to room temp . . . then mixing water in a bowl with air stone. Honestly . . . everything is going to stress them. If the bag is NOT a breather bag, the old "plop and drop" method is fine, since you're bringing in from a LFS.

Here is an old photo of a Ram born and raised in our water . . .

 

Edited November 2, 2022 by Fish Folk

[NOLANANO]

Thanks for the tips and That’s an amazing looking GBR! I’ve never seen one like that one before.

Here is a pic of the pair that I managed to keep alive for 3 months.

[dasaltemelosguy]

Please accept this as without question to be the least authoritative opinion on GBR's here (seriously), but I've had 3 GBR's for about almost 2 years in this tank. 2 males and 1 female oddly enough. I've seen occasionally, very minor head banging but little to no chasing and no aggression at all. 

Acclimation was easy for me as the LFS that all of these guys came from, is literally down the street, and we share the same water so in my case, it's always been plop & drop. It's always been at 80*F with quite hard water and has a huge filtration turnover of 1100GPH for this 75-gallon tank.  The pH has always been 8 and due to 4 large potho's plants plus twenty, 6-foot+ stalks of lucky bamboo, I have yet to be able to get a nitrate reading. 

I realize there's so much wrong with this setup as it represents several conflicting climates and continents but what I can say is the health, growth, constant spawning and fry in this tank seem to emphasize (at least to me) the value of a stress-free environment as there's simply no sense of fear or anxiety in this tank. Eggs and fry are almost continuous but there's a lot of competition and so far, they've always beaten me to it (there's 7 plecos, 6 from my dear friend @Guppysnail in here so who knows what happens nocturnally!). 

I realize this isn't of much help but here's recent a 1-minute video of my GBR's and this international gang:

GBR's et al. (1 minute)

Good luck but you'll definitely want to ask @Fish Folk or others over me!

[Fish Folk]

On 11/2/2022 at 5:56 PM, dasaltemelosguy said:

Please accept this as without question to be the least authoritative opinion on GBR's here (seriously), but I've had 3 GBR's for about almost 2 years in this tank. 2 males and 1 female oddly enough. I've seen occasionally, very minor head banging but little to no chasing and no aggression at all. 

Acclimation was easy for me as the LFS that all of these guys came from, is literally down the street, and we share the same water so in my case, it's always been plop & drop. It's always been at 80*F with quite hard water and has a huge filtration turnover of 1100GPH for this 75-gallon tank.  The pH has always been 8 and due to 4 large potho's plants plus twenty, 6-foot+ stalks of lucky bamboo, I have yet to be able to get a nitrate reading. 

I realize there's so much wrong with this setup as it represents several conflicting climates and continents but what I can say is the health, growth, constant spawning and fry in this tank seem to emphasize (at least to me) the value of a stress-free environment as there's simply no sense of fear or anxiety in this tank. Eggs and fry are almost continuous but there's a lot of competition and so far, they've always beaten me to it (there's 7 plecos, 6 from my dear friend @Guppysnail in here so who knows what happens nocturnally!). 

I realize this isn't of much help but here's recent a 1-minute video of my GBR's and this international gang:

GBR's et al. (1 minute)

Good luck but you'll definitely want to ask @Fish Folk or others over me!

Most fascinating stocking I’ve ever seen! Love this.

[RadMax8]

@NOLANANOgiven your previous luck (or lack of it), it may be a good idea to quarantine your GBRs before placing them in your display tank. Give them a dose of the med trio recommend on this site and feed them well. 

Good luck! Love those little fish!

[NOLANANO]

Update: I got 5 Rams this morning. I temp acclimated them for 30 minutes and then dropped them in and so far all the fish look great.  The 2 males are bickering some to figure out the pecking order and/or territories but the females are all getting along fine.  One of the males has picked the biggest female as his target to pair with but so far she is resistant.  This is the best result I have gotten so far as even the 2 that lasted 3 months breathed heavy and hid for a day or two before recovering and being fine. These little guys don't look like they are stressed at all.  Lets hope it stays that way lol.

[Guppysnail]

On 11/3/2022 at 4:43 PM, NOLANANO said:

Update: I got 5 Rams this morning. I temp acclimated them for 30 minutes and then dropped them in and so far all the fish look great.  The 2 males are bickering some to figure out the pecking order and/or territories but the females are all getting along fine.  One of the males has picked the biggest female as his target to pair with but so far she is resistant.  This is the best result I have gotten so far as even the 2 that lasted 3 months breathed heavy and hid for a day or two before recovering and being fine. These little guys don't look like they are stressed at all.  Lets hope it stays that way lol.

I really hope yours do great. I love watching mine. They are like little kids playing on the playground. 

[NOLANANO]

Update 2: everyone is looking amazing this morning. Only new development is that the dominant male claimed the left side of my tank (most structure) and the other 4 mostly stay on the right side of the tank. Obviously they venture over to his side some but then he shows off and they end up back on the right.  No violence so I’m sure they will figure out who belongs where soon enough.

here is 2 pics:

Edited November 4, 2022 by NOLANANO

[NOLANANO]

@Fish Folk @Guppysnail I bought the 5 Rams as noted but it turns out I got 3 M and 2F. The alpha male has already paired with one female and it looks to me like the second male and the remaining female are beginning to hang out and pair.  Should I buy another female for the remaining male or will that ruin the balance between the fish? Right now they bicker some over territory and access to females but its nothing crazy and the females stay out of it. Would adding another female be beneficial or would it ruin the vibe?

[Guppysnail]

On 11/8/2022 at 10:59 AM, NOLANANO said:

@Fish Folk @Guppysnail I bought the 5 Rams as noted but it turns out I got 3 M and 2F. The alpha male has already paired with one female and it looks to me like the second male and the remaining female are beginning to hang out and pair.  Should I buy another female for the remaining male or will that ruin the balance between the fish? Right now they bicker some over territory and access to females but its nothing crazy and the females stay out of it. Would adding another female be beneficial or would it ruin the vibe?

I have not had my group long enough to give advice on this. I’m sure @Fish Folkhas wisdom to share. 

[DiscusLover]

On 11/8/2022 at 7:59 AM, NOLANANO said:

@Fish Folk @Guppysnail I bought the 5 Rams as noted but it turns out I got 3 M and 2F. The alpha male has already paired with one female and it looks to me like the second male and the remaining female are beginning to hang out and pair.  Should I buy another female for the remaining male or will that ruin the balance between the fish? Right now they bicker some over territory and access to females but its nothing crazy and the females stay out of it. Would adding another female be beneficial or would it ruin the vibe?

Normally you would want a ratio of 1m to 2f because rams tend to find another partner after they spawn, not in all cases but something to be cautious about. You could buy a female for that one male but be aware that male might be too aggressive for that female and might have to return it back.

[nabokovfan87]

For the sake of it, if you haven't check out this video.
 

 

[NOLANANO]

Update: I have had one spawn but the parents ate the eggs. The two that spawned together don’t seem to be permanently paired as she doesn’t hangout by him as much anymore but he still tolerates her in his territory more than any other ram. I have 3 males and the breeder is the most dominant and claimed the left 3rd of the tank. The second male has claimed the right/back third and the least dominant male has the least desired area near the front glass with the fewest plants (we are working on making it better for him.) 

here are some pictures: