German blue rams

[Joseph]

Hello I've recently got some great specimens of German blue rams 1 male and 3 females. The tank is perfect for them in every way planted really well good substrate, good filtration, botanicals, driftwood,and almond leaves. Well my thing is they started making pits to start laying eggs after feeding the tank with live baby brineshrimp for two days ( thanks Dean and Cory) but now I'm paranoid because I have a unnumberable amount of Malaysian trumpet snails living in the substrate and they come out in droves when food is in the tank. So will they eat my GBRS eggs before they can hatch? The rams eat at them all the time but I'm thinking thier is just too many for them to not be overwhelmed. So is this a genuine concern or not? Thanks for all the help

[FriendlyLoach]

I recently had a situation like this. My hillstream loaches starting breeding. Then I realized that there are hundreds of pond and ramshorn snails. I woke up at like 1 am and made a sort of mesh net to put over the nest but then in the morning realized that I trapped snails in with the eggs. 😞 I know that a net would not work with GBRs because they care for their babies. I would recommend making a snail trap and putting them in a different tank or something so that it will not be a problem next time. I know that this is a very sad but I cant´t think of anything else. I am so sorry! I know how hard it can be to remove hundreds of snails but I have managed to do it by picking them off the glass when I see them. That is how I got through some long boring zoom calls, lol! I hope it works out for you!

[Brandy]

Yeah, genuine concern. I have had snails wipe out GBR eggs before my very eyes. Mine were lousy parents anyway. I have since learned to pull eggs from watching @Fish Folk's videos, which worked well for some other cichlids. If I were going to try with Rams again, I would just pull the eggs and go that route.

 

[Fish Folk]

If they choose a rock to lay on, I’d pull it. If it’s substrate... too hard to get good yield from eggs unless you’re meticulous (and lucky). We tried time and time again to let Rams raise their own for us. They never did. Here’s a pair we raised up from fry and bred to get 3rd generation fry.