Rams

[Blue_Ram]

Hello,

I am new to the forum. I currently have a pair of German Blue Rams in my 38 gallon planted and was wanting to know what I would need to do to set up a breeding tank in order to breed my ram pair. I have read on various sites that I should have them in a 10g with flat, smooth rocks, sponge filter, and maybe a few live plants. I read that the pH can range anywhere from 6.0 to 8.4, but idealy it should be around 7.0 and that hardness should be between 4-15 gh. Is this accuarte information?

I also read that I should have another 10g to raise the fry, a 29g to house the fry once they get bigger and a 1 gallon tank if I want to raise the eggs/fry artifically

Any help/suggestions are agreatly appreciated!

Thanks,

Blue Ram

 

[apistobob]

It sounds like you are on the right track. Continue with good feeding and water changes and you should be rewarded with spawning.

Check out www.dwarfcichlid.com/Microgeophagus_ramirezi.php for more info.

Bob

 

[Blue_Ram]

I went to that link and it said that if I don't have the water at a pH of 5.5 - 6.2 and a temperature of 82-84 degrees F then the eggs wont develop properly and no fry will be produced.

My tap has a pH of 7.8. Is there any way I can lower the pH of the water to 6.0 without the use of an RO system?

 

[apistobob]

The low pH values are those that are found in the wild where rams are collected. Your chance of success in your water might depend on the source of your fish. If they are wild imports I suspect you will be unsuccessful in getting fry. However, if your fish are hobbyist bred it is possible that they have become acclimated to harder, more alkaline water. If so you might have success.

There is no easy way to reduce the hardness and pH of your water. You can try things like peat filtration, oak leaves, lots of driftwood, etc. However, in my experience, none of these will have more than a very minor impact. If you are going to move the breeding pair to a ten gallon tank you could look into buying RO water from the grocery store. It is often inexpensive to buy and you might find that a 50/50 mix with your tap water would provide much better conditions. There have been lots of discussions about this topic here and I am sure that if someone has better info they will weigh in.

Bob

 

[Blue_Ram]

Thanks for the help! I am going to get two sponge filters to start with and run them on my 38 gallon tank until they are loaded with bacteria (around 3 weeks). Then after that I will put them on the two 10 gallon tanks I have. Meanwhile, I will feed my rams a diet that is made up mostly of frozen brine shrimp, daphnia and tubifex worms. Then once I believe that the 2 tanks are ready I will see from there.

I have also had a thought of setting up a 29 gallon planted tank for holding the fry once they get to large for the 10 gallon. Then once they reach about 3/4 inch, I think they will be ready to find new homes.

I'm sure I will have plenty of questions to ask throughout the process.

Blue_Ram

 

[electric eel]

i could'nt resist putting in my 2 cents so here it is.your recomended 10 gallon tank size is in my opinion the minimum tank size for a breeding pair of rams not something that is mandatory.i think you would be much better off with a 20long.when they spawn the male and female always fight to see who is going to take care of the fry(i've sucessfully spawned about 25 pairs)in the confines of a 10gallon tank this usually results in the fry being eaten(out of frustration in my opinion) if you don't take them.i've had spawns in my growout tanks in my 8.2ph around 675ppm kh tapwater(the eggs have never hatched though) from what i have read and in my experience ph is of secondary importance it is the hardness of the water that is most important for the eggs to hatch properly.it takes very little effort to collect enough rainwater(i would recomend carbon filtering it though not absolutely necessary) to keep a pair in a 10 gallon tank.my first pair i spawned i kept in a 10gallon planted tank and bought 10 gallons of ro water from my local fish store every 2 weeks to do water changes with.i ended up taking 1400 fry from that first pair before i messed around and let the female die(10gallon tanks tend to be pretty unforgiving) i fed the last 200 fry i took to my angelfish cause i just did'nt have room for them.i've sold at least 10proven pairs to people in my club and i don't know of any that sucessfully spawned in hardwater(they always try though and wonder why they don't succeed)rams really are very easy to spawn although the fry can be problematic to raise(if you get them to about 2weeks old they are usually pretty hardy though).i'd lay off the frozen brine shrimp.it does'nt have a lot of food value and fouls your water quickly.frozen bloodworms would be better.

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,
I'd go for peat filtered rain or R.O. water, 2 sponge filter, a very well established tank (with at least 24" x 12" footprint), lots of leaf litter & plants, sand substrate and lots of potential egg laying surfaces, (they like broken clay pot), but sandstone, slate etc. I'd keep the pair on their own, and I'd make sure there was a very large amount of "Java" moss, ideally growing over most the of the surfaces. 12 hour day for the lights and about 28oC temperature. I'd also keep MTS in with the Rams, unless the pH was so low that there was really quick shell ablation. I'd aim for the pH to be stable and below 7, but I wouldn't add anything to lower it, (other than the peat, dead leaves and bogwood), this is partially why you want a long set up tank, it's likely to have much more stable parameters.

I'd change 10% of the water daily, but do no other "housekeeping".
After the eggs hatch I'd leave both the parents in to dig pits (that's why sand is best), move the fry around etc.

I'd feed some fine food as soon as the fry are in the free swimming "cloud", microworms or vinegar eels, but I'd expect they would get a lot of their food from the moss, mulm and sponges. BBS will help but I don't think they are essential. I'd keep them with their parents as long as they are showing some sort of parental care.

cheers Darrel

 

[electric eel]

you can leave the fry with the parents if you like but if you are really wanting fry it is much safer to pull the fry shortly after they freeswim.my first pair i let them try 7 times with no luck.they would get the fry freeswimming but they always ended up eating them.i've only had a couple spawns that the parents raised the fry to any size.one pair sucessfully raised about 60 fry to 1/2" in length before i took them(this was out of maybe 150 freeswimming fry)the next spawn they ate every baby first day freeswimming and this was an older established pair(i've found they usually only lay about 50 to 75 eggs when they first start) i've done quite a bit of experimentation with these guys i set up different tanks one time just to see if they would spawn under different conditions.one was a planted 10 gallon tank with driftwood.one just sand and driftwood.one barebottom with a piece of driftwood.i was able to get the pairs in all 3 tanks to spawn and get the fry freeswimming but the ones in the bare tank did'nt like it(they generally like to dig pits in the substrate and move the wigglers around)i also had a young trio take turns spawning in the same tank(i was trying to let the male pick the one he liked but he spawned with both) one thing i have found is that if you let the water get pretty dark from the tannic acid in driftwood you will have many more eggs hatch sucessfully.also in my experience if you mess with the tank too much they never get really comfortable.it takes them a while to settle down after a water change and i found i did better with a large weekly water change(keep in mind though that if at all possible i always do water changes with aged water) then smaller more frequent changes.check out what is said about rams in cichlid atlas 2.if i remember right dr.romer says that there are'nt a lot of other fish where rams are usually found so they have'nt had to evolve the level of parental care that apistograma have(i believe thats what i read anyway) and thus are comparatively poor parents.i just wanted to add that the reason i like to filter rainwater thru activated carbon is to remove pollutants.almost all of the roofing material in the u.s. is treated with algaecides(i collect it off the roof via downspouts) but i have used it without filtering it with no obvious ill effect.