How to get rams to breed?

[bayoucichlids]

Well I thought that I had a pair, but now I am not so sure. The male and female German Blue Rams that I have do not show any signs of spawning and I am not sure what environmental factors set it off.

Currently I keep my water temp at 82-84 degrees F. My PH is 6.7 and nitrates and nitrites are 0. I am doing water changes weekly at 60%. I feed sprulina flakes and spectrum cichlid pellets. For the last two days I have added earthworms. Feeding is once a day and at night. I have peice of slate and small clay pot as spawning places. I have driftwood and plastic plants for hiding places.

Other inhabitants are 4 guppies and 2 emerald cories. I had a short bout with ich but that is now resolved.

Is there anything I can do to encourage spawning? I would welcome all comments and suggestions. Thanks!

 

[Tedstank]

Sounds like you have the basics ok for spawning. How old are your fish?? Personally if I were out to spawn these, and small fish were available, I would have bought a group and let them pair off, you may not have a pair.
How large is your tank?
Driftwood is great...lots of hiding places are necessary and llive plants would be preferred.
Patience, patience, patience...good luck, they are wonderfulf fish.

 

[bayoucichlids]

How old are your fish?? How large is your tank?

Tedstank, The fish's age I m not sure of. I have had them almost a month. I am about a week past an "ich" scare, but everyone is doing well. The tank is a 10 gallon and I know is a minumum size tank for breeding. I have 4 small guppies thatact as dither fish and the rams make a lazy attempt of nipping at them. I also have 2 emerald cories. I have been keeping the lights off during the day and only turn it on when actively viewing them or during feeding time. They seem to really like the chopped earthworms, so I am going to continue feeding that to them every day. Thanks for the response.

PS: I apologize for posting this in the wrong forum. It should have been in the breeding or beginner forum. If a moderator could move it to the appropriate one, it would be appreciated.

 

[Bilbo]

My setup for rams is 1cm of fine sand and about 3 or 4 flat medium stones.
Rams like to dig so give them something to dig into.

Often I will have some indian fern wedged under some of the rocks or some java moss around it just to give them some privacy.

pH 6 - 6.5, RO or rain water for breeding. Loads of live food especially daphnia or mossie larvae.

Should be easy to sex. Females have iridescent blue spots on the black shoulder patch, usually have shorter fins and well as a pinker belly.

I would remove the other fish, rams are not skittish and dont need dither fish, but they make terrible parients.

 

[electric eel]

you really need them in a dedicated tank.no other fish!you are not feeding them often enough either.i feed them 3 times a day when i'm conditioning them(don't go crazy though only what they'll eat in a few minutes-its alright if their stomachs get big but no uneaten food lying about the tank) and you might try adding some live mosquito larvae(you can feed them a lot of them) into your feeding regimin(should'nt be hard to come by in louisiana)if they are big mature rams your chance of spawning them as a novice is pretty slim(they usually only spawn sporadically when they get old if at all) condition them really well for maybe a week and watch the weather do a big water change(90 to 95%)maybe a day or so before a big storm front with water a few degrees colder then their tank water.i would also ease up on the water changes and do maybe 25% a week.to me it is a lot like spawning angels unfortunately the method i use for them and angelfish does'nt seem to work too well for apisto's for me.seems like heavily feeding apisto's is counterproductive to breeding.i would ease up on the flake food and only use it as a supplement(for the vitamins) go more with earthworms,live mosquito larvae and live daphnia if you can get them.also i would raise temp to 85F.

 

[Apisto_Dezign]

Great species your working with. I have breed these before but they were in a 29 gallon tank w/ wc about 30% per week. My water ph was 6.5 and temp was set at 82. The guppies are great as diter fish and as well as great treats when they have babies. I used to have a pair with 4 swordtails 1m/3f and when they breed the rams picked them up. One of my best advice is if you do not want to buy a group wait for your LFS when they get their shipment is to wait a week or so and when they start pairing off then you can choose the best pair from the tank. Hope that helps if you want to start over, but best of luck on breeding these beauties.

 

[bayoucichlids]

Not sure what this means, but the male has staked a spot in the corner of the tank. The only problem is that anytime the female comes around he goes after her and nips at her and she runs away from him. I do not know if this is typical male female behavior or not during spawning. Any experienced breeders please let me know if this is normal or if it signals that they are not a pair. Thanks!

 

[electric eel]

are there eggs there?most pairs i have had would alternate taking care of eggs(with female most of the time doing more of the work) but i have had males take over completely. once they freeswim the male will try to take complete control of the fry but sometimes they will work together usually they fight over them though.as far as the guppies go i never like to get my fish into the habit of eating fish fry especially ones that have as bad a rep for eating their own fry as rams have.

 

[bayoucichlids]

No eggs yet, but they are being nicer to each other today. They are swimming around together a lot.

 

[electric eel]

i have had them spawn right on the sand.only a couple times but thats why i asked cause it is possible.as i think it was Apistomaster said(in so many words) the main mistake people make with rams is that they start spawning very young maybe halfgrown(females around 1" maybe)you need to get them going early and keep them spawning.they will usually spawn every 2 to 3 weeks for awhile if you take the fry(i'm guessing maybe 10 spawns) and then they slow down and spawn irregularly(much like angelfish do)i've also found if you let their tanks go or do something else to throw them off track it is difficult to get them going regularly again.most people that breed them regularly sell off the older pairs and set up new younger ones as the older pairs slow down.

 

[kristina]

Your male will get aggressive towards the female if she is not producing eggs as soon as he would like her to. This may be what you are experiencing. Watch that she does not get overly stressed by his strong encouragements. This will be visible beyond doubt, she will start turning black in all the places she shouldn't. Other than that, I have only known them to be territorial if there are eggs, or there are going to be eggs soon. Keep your pH low, close to about 6 and very soft water as stated above. To be honest I haven't tried the earthworms, but mine love blackworms and brine shrimp.

 

[Kenshin]

my pair spawned the first time last week and cared for their eggs for 3 days and then ate them (may have eaten the wrigglers), they spawned again tonight this time in a diff spot and the spawn seems a little larger then the first im going to see what happens but when i notice the pair cleaning off potential spawning sites iv done a largish water change the temp in the tank drops about 2 dagrees and they normally spawn not long after (both times they have for me)

if they babysit theyre eggs good again i may consider removing the parrents on day 3 before they are due to become wrigglers im a little undecided yet

 

[nasir]

Ram dieing every day need help

Friends,

Need your help , I imported Blue Ram and Apisto Agazzi double red Apisto are fish but im facing problem in Ram frm last 5 day i lost 11 ram out of 40 ram i dont know why it happening and I noticed their fins are clamp and their Gill beat is high and i haveto take the dead one each morning , i imported for breeding them but loosing on ram . i feeding them Frozen Bloodworm and i put 2 bog wood and peat filter in the 25 gallon aquairum , andi dont find any ICH sign in them . Please help me out on this issue.

regard
:frown:

 

[KittyKat]

Re: Ram dieing every day need help

Need your help , I imported Blue Ram and Apisto Agazzi double red Apisto are fish but im facing problem in Ram frm last 5 day i lost 11 ram out of 40 ram i dont know why it happening and I noticed their fins are clamp and their Gill beat is high and i haveto take the dead one each morning , i imported for breeding them but loosing on ram . i feeding them Frozen Bloodworm and i put 2 bog wood and peat filter in the 25 gallon aquairum , andi dont find any ICH sign in them . Please help me out on this issue.

Hi, please answer the following questions first:
- What are your water conditions? pH, ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, water hardness as well as anything else you can measure.
- What is the set up? Substrate, decorations, plants.
- How long has the tank been set up prior to you adding the fish and is it cycled?
- Is there enough aeration in the tank? Try adding an airstone: you have many fish in a relatively small tank.
- Where did you get the fish from?

I would strongly recommend that you stop feeding bloodworm and change their diet to boiled and de-shelled peas for a couple of days. After that, feed them flake, pellet, mosquito larvae and other things like that.. and on the whole do not feed bloodworm as it is known to cause problems.

 

[electric eel]

what is the temp. also?as kat said that is an awful lot of rams for that size tank.how big are they?if they are very big you need more like a 40 breeder or a standard 55.i have kept up to 100 young adults in a 55 doing every other or every 3rd day waterchanges and you will usually still lose a few due to fighting,stress etc.i have never had any luck keeping either asian or florida fishfarm rams alive for any length of time except in very soft,fairly acidic water(50-75ppm and somewhere around 5.8 to 6 ph) i have kept specimins of my tank bred ones in my 300ppm,8.2ph water alive for at least a year but not the imports.a lot of them are grown out in softwater ponds outside.this might be a stupid question also but is the filter on the 25 cycled well.if you are going to try to keep your tank that densely stocked it needs to be over filtered.normally if i have a 55 stocked to the max(really overstocked) i will run at least 2- hydrosponge4 filters on it and clean the filters every 3rd day.