Rams laid eggs last night..

[drudnick]

Now the old question leave the eggs, or pull them. Male seems to be watching over them. I am thinking of leaving them and seeing what happens. I am relatively new to fishkeeping, so I dont know if I would be any better at raising them, then if I let them try. Any suggestions?

 

[Cathy G]

Raising ram fry is hard. I think there is a secret formula/incantation - I haven't found it yet.

If you think you might give it a try, watch carefully and if the parents start to munch you can pull the eggs or pull the parents. If you pull the eggs, I recommend hatching in straight RO. 24-36 hours they eggs hatch, they wiggle around for another day or two and then become freeswimming. It is at this time the fun begins - feeding the little buggers. San Fransico Bay brand has smaller brine shrimp cysts for hatching your own baby brine shrimp. Have these ready to be eaten when the fry are free swimming. You can also have infusoria water ready then too.

You will need to keep the water pristine. 0 ammonia, 0 nitrites and less than 5 nitrates.

If the parents don't munch the eggs, they might munch the wigglers. If they don't munch these guys, they might munch the free swimmers after a couple of weeks. Some ram parents figure out how to rear their fry after several attempts, others never do.

Also, many rams are bred in the east and are sterile because they are pumped with hormones. Just because they laid eggs doesn't mean they will hatch. For proper fertilization, keep your gh under 4-5. (3 is ideal I believe).

There are some good articles on breeding rams on the net, you might do a little background research to prepare for the next time.

My bolivians just spawned again - they have managed to get the eggs to the wiggler stage only once in the 3 times they have spawned. (Then they attack each other and eat the fry, or they have attacked each other and eaten the eggs.) This time I pulled the eggs and will see if I have better husbandry skills then I did when my blues spawned. (Only 2 survivors from that one...)

Good Luck,
Cathy

 

[nightowl1350]

It is up to you, but I leave my pairs for a few times with their eggs before I pull eggs.

Raising them is not as hard as you think. I pull the eggs (blue rams or apistos) and raise them on tap water...it will depend on your water in the breeding tanks, if you use RO there then use RO for hatching.

One of the male rams I raised (pulled eggs) seems to get the eggs to wiggler stage, then eats them. He won't let the female near the eggs and the funny thing is Mom was parent raised so she might do a better job. I have pulled eggs from the pair and raised them and the last spawn was huge...I have about 150 ram fry that are about 2 months old

The fry are tiny so have some vinegar eels or microworms on hand for the free swimmers.