Guppy and Ram

[faysalals1]

I have a 25 gallon aquarium with two German Rams, and 10 male guppies.

Today I found one of the guppies dead and his fins are almost gone!

I know German Rams are peaceful, and even if it attacks a guppy, it wont kill it or eat it!

I also know male guppies wont attack each other to the death.

Could it be possible that he died because hes a new fish, and then the shrimp started eating his fins after its dead?

[johnnyxxl]

It's possible even possible that the fish started eating it after death. My guppies did that when I was a kid saw it happen a couple of times.

[Lennie]

On 4/5/2024 at 9:37 AM, faysalals1 said:

I know German Rams are peaceful, and even if it attacks a guppy, it wont kill it or eat it!

German Blue rams are defintely not a fish to label as "peaceful". Not at all. I bred and raised many generations at home and given the chance, almost all are bullies, both towards each other and to other fish, starting from a very small size.

 

I had to move my black ram to my bedroom display tank, and he basically bullied and bothered everyone. Other cichlids, corydoras, plecos, and even my betta. Every other fish lived peacefully there before the GBR addition.

So don't be sure.

Consuming dead fish do happen, so that is a possibility. How it died, is a hard question to answer. But as long as you don't keep short fin males like panda guppies, basically a male guppy outswimming fast enough a GBR is basically impossible. One hit even might be enough to knock it off.

Edited April 5 by Lennie

[Guppysnail]

I have very different experience with rams.  Mine don’t bother any other other fish.  However rams prefer soft water lower ph. Guppies need hard water and higher ph.

The fins are gone likely due to post-mortem predation. 
 

What is you gh and ph.  Cause of death may have been new fish, failure to adapt to your water or depending on the source guppies have been so over bred they are incredibly weak anymore. They are notoriously hard to keep alive these days. 

[faysalals1]

On 4/5/2024 at 6:42 AM, Guppysnail said:

I have very different experience with rams.  Mine don’t bother any other other fish.  However rams prefer soft water lower ph. Guppies need hard water and higher ph.

The fins are gone likely due to post-mortem predation. 
 

What is you gh and ph.  Cause of death may have been new fish, failure to adapt to your water or depending on the source guppies have been so over bred they are incredibly weak anymore. They are notoriously hard to keep alive these days. 

My water is good, the only issue I have is my water is hard, and im not sure how to lower it. I think its from my tap water.

And yeah everything I red about Rams is they are not peaceful, but not aggressive

Edited April 5 by faysalals1

[Tony s]

On 4/5/2024 at 12:44 PM, faysalals1 said:

im not sure how to lower it

ro water is the easiest

you're going to need another tank though. your guppies like hard water and don't do well in soft

[jwcarlson]

I've got rams in my hard tap water.  I change a lot of water and keep the tanks very clean and they do just fine.  *shrug*  Fairly small sample size, but they seem happy as clams as they say.  I have been talking to some ram breeders who say they spawn and successfully raise fry in 200 and 400 TDS tap water.

[Guppysnail]

On 4/5/2024 at 3:02 PM, jwcarlson said:

I've got rams in my hard tap water.  I change a lot of water and keep the tanks very clean and they do just fine.  *shrug*  Fairly small sample size, but they seem happy as clams as they say.  I have been talking to some ram breeders who say they spawn and successfully raise fry in 200 and 400 TDS tap water.

My tank is 300 gh my tap is so high it goes to far over sny chsrt to test I mix in some RO to make it habitable. they spawn fine but like you I do lots of water changes and vacuum.  Higher gh/kh makes bacterial soup. It’s definitely doable armed with the knowledge of how clean the water needs to be. 

[jwcarlson]

On 4/5/2024 at 3:12 PM, Guppysnail said:

My tank is 300 gh my tap is so high it goes to far over sny chsrt to test I mix in some RO to make it habitable. they spawn fine but like you I do lots of water changes and vacuum.  Higher gh/kh makes bacterial soup. It’s definitely doable armed with the knowledge of how clean the water needs to be. 

Fully agree, I'm doing lots of water changes and wiping everything down.  Basically, keeping them like discus, but not *quite* as many water changes.  The ones I'm spawning are in mostly RO with a little bit of tap water.

Your tap sounds similar to mine.  I don't bother cutting it with RO though and it seems habitable.  😄  I think my GH is... 18 degrees which I think is somewhere in that 300 ballpark?  I never test it anymore so I forget.

Edited April 5 by jwcarlson