GBR’s

[Tony s]

Hi, completely new here. Not sure I’m in right place or not.

got in 4 gbrs from online (I. T.), put them in 20 gal quarantine tank at 86 degrees. Was my Daddy Platy tank so has been running for a year stabile. Gh 5 kh 6  0 ammonia 0nitrite 5-10 nitrate. (Lots of hornwort) dwarf sag and swords. Ph 7.6 apparently. Have now lost 3 of 4 very frustrated with this. Angels in same tank also quarantined. And 2 rainbows for a short bit. They seem fine, worried about the lone ram. Trying to set up stabile water for 100 plus animals of all sorts. Most tanks are moderately planted. One 40 gallon dark tank. With lots of glow fish. My daughter likes glow fish

 

more info… on well water. Very hard water with iron bacteria in the well. To the point it turns sidewalks rust colored when watering the grass outside

Running 240 gallons of aquariums by ro water only. Using seachem equilibrium, acid and alkaline buffers trying to produce neutral stable water ph around 7 . Kh of 3, gh of 7. Apparently missed on ph of 7. 

 

everything is mostly stable. Fish loss is minimal. Water changes should be more frequent. But water changes are a no joke ton of work. (Also relaxing, but I farm and water changes come after work) Have thought about putting system in the basement to reserve 150 gallons of ro. Using 30 gallon tote now. 

[Tony s]

typo kh of 3  gh of 6

[Tony s]

I should actually ask a question. 

Does anybody have any idea of how to keep rams thriving and alive?

I would appreciate any ideas as to what mistakes I'm making. Only been doing fish for 18 months and find it fascinating and relaxing.

but i really don't want to be harming my animals.

[anewbie]

rams are a more sensitive/delicate fish than angelfishes. I'd target their temp around 82 and you want mature aquarium (0 ammonia/nitrite - which you dindicated) and relatively soft water. Your water (kh 3 gh 7) is ok but softer is better. However you also want to check the sellers water condition because if it is radically different from yours the fishes will ahve to be accliminated slowly to the new water condition.

 

[DallasCowboys16]

On 12/18/2023 at 4:43 PM, Tony s said:

I should actually ask a question. 

Does anybody have any idea of how to keep rams thriving and alive?

I would appreciate any ideas as to what mistakes I'm making. Only been doing fish for 18 months and find it fascinating and relaxing.

but i really don't want to be harming my animals.

I find that the temperature is really key. The long term successes I’ve had with Rams have always come in tanks with the temp set to 80+ degrees.

It also doesn’t hurt to start off with hearty fish. I used to buy Rams from a guy named Coralbandit that I knew from a previous forum on Aquabid and his fish were big, healthy and a lot hardier than a typical store bought Ram juiced up with hormones by a mass quantity breeder. 

In addition to that, just good clean water on the softer side with a ph of 6.5-7 goes a long way.

They are not the easiest fish in the world to keep and require some slightly more species-specific care than most commonly available fish, but it can be done.

Edited December 19, 2023 by DallasCowboys16

[Tony s]

Okay. Bit confused then. 3 dKh is equivalent to ~54 ppm kh. That seems relatively soft to me. How do you keep your ph stable then?

[DallasCowboys16]

On 12/18/2023 at 5:00 PM, Tony s said:

Okay. Bit confused then. 3 dKh is equivalent to ~54 ppm kh. That seems relatively soft to me. How do you keep your ph stable then?

That is relatively soft water, but 0-50 ppm (0-3 DKh) is the ideal target for Rams. For GH, 0-3 DGh is also the ideal target range for soft water species.

as far as Ph goes, in my tanks I usually use a lot of driftwood and a neutral substrate so they typically stabilize between 6.7 and 7.2 PH. Wood, leaf litter, botanicals, etc are a great way to lower your PH. Don’t make huge water changes with water of a drastically different PH value (>0.5 point difference) and you will retain stability is a properly aged tank.

Having soft water is more important than chasing a PH value IMO. As long as your PH isn’t above 8, I can’t imagine it would present you with difficulties keeping Rams long term.

Also, breeding conditions versus conditions for just keeping the fish are two very different things. If your just looking to keep them happy, bump that temp up to the low 80s, depress that PH, GH, and KH a little bit, and you should be golden.

This is a really good thread I stumbled upon with some specifics if you want more reading: 

 

Edited December 19, 2023 by DallasCowboys16

[Tony s]

Okay. Great article.

apparently i should be shooting for a dKh of around 4. And dGh of around 6 would work. Which I can do by adjusting my equilibrium and both buffers. The hard part becomes at what levels do the other animals prefer. which requires more homework. Which was why I was trying to stay as neutral as possible 

Honestly, if i didn't have to strip my water down to nothing, I'd probably just stay with hard water/ high ph fish. 

As for fish sources online, I know nothing about them. I usually buy from a lfs in Indianapolis or Lafayette, In. was my first time buying any animal online. Ended up buying from a source in florida that had a black friday sale. They are relatively large and i like what i see, but don't know they're reputation. But that seemed to be okay as well.

 

Thanks DC16!

[DallasCowboys16]

On 12/18/2023 at 5:56 PM, Tony s said:

Okay. Great article.

apparently i should be shooting for a dKh of around 4. And dGh of around 6 would work. Which I can do by adjusting my equilibrium and both buffers. The hard part becomes at what levels do the other animals prefer. which requires more homework. Which was why I was trying to stay as neutral as possible 

Honestly, if i didn't have to strip my water down to nothing, I'd probably just stay with hard water/ high ph fish. 

As for fish sources online, I know nothing about them. I usually buy from a lfs in Indianapolis or Lafayette, In. was my first time buying any animal online. Ended up buying from a source in florida that had a black friday sale. They are relatively large and i like what i see, but don't know they're reputation. But that seemed to be okay as well.

 

Thanks DC16!

If you want the simplest solution, just throw a few almond leaves or a big piece of driftwood in your Ram tank. It should lower the PH pretty notably. Your other levels are close enough that I woudn't sweat them all that much. What you can do is just cut your water changes in that tank with pure RO to lower the GH and KH a little bit too.

It sounds like a frustrating situation having to mix your water from RO and a variety of buffers. Here in Denver we have notoriously soft water so I tend to just keep soft water species that thrive in it with minimal intervention. That leaves africans, guppies, platies, mollies, etc off of my list for the most part (which is unfortunate because I like all of them) but I don't want to have to spend so much time chasing optimal parameters for them.

Something that I will say is that I never had super long lived Rams, even in optimal conditions, until I actually purchased from a reputable breeder (Look up Coralbandit rams on google. I don't know if Tom is still selling, but I know there are lots of breeders that still maintain his line) and the fish were seemingly bulletproof compared to their factory farmed brothers and sisters. If you really have your heart set on rams, I would try and find a pair of fish from the Coralbandit line.