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Ok, I need any and all information you all have on these fish. I really want to kknow a lot about them and maybe start breeding and rasing them and then trading the babies for fish supplies and such...and repeating the process. I think it would be neat to raise generation after generation of rams, that is, if I can get the to breed.


Any way any information you can provide will be greatly appreciated

This thread will give you a bit of a start. Basically, they're like the Bolivian ram (why not, since they're the only two fish in the genus) except a little smaller and more delicate. So long as you keep your water quality good and you put them in an established tank, they should survive. Feed them live and frozen foods on top of that, and they may well start spawning.

Do you have any specific questions that need answering?

Last edited by sirbooks at 22-Jul-2005 22:37

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And when he gets to Heaven, to Saint Peter he will tell: "One more Marine reporting, Sir! I've served my time in Hell."

All about Rams? It's a lot, and it will certainly differ, depends who you're going to ask.

A good starting point is this link
which gives quite a lot of information about them.

The best advice I can give you is not to try and breed the rams, but concentrate on making your rams happy in a healthy environment. If you do that, they will do the rest themselves.

However, thinking about breeding, if you are so seriously about it, then the best thing is to get your fish right. Or, in other words, don't just go to your fish shop and get a male and a female who have paired, but rather source some good fish first, males from one source and females from another, get 3 of each and let them pair. It's best if one of the parents is a wild ram.

My rams have been given to me by a breeder who does just that, a wild mother and a german brood father. The kids are stunning, much nicer than anything I've ever seen in shops before. Well, here are three pictures of them:


That picture was taken right when I got them, about a month ago. They were three months old at the time.


This one was taken two weeks ago, after they've spawned. It was quite amazing, as they're still tiny, and then they spawned.


And this one was taken yesterday, after they've grown a bit. You can see the male's fin extensions better on this one, but they're still growing and should become longer. Also, none of the pictures really do them justice as I just don't seem to be able to get their colours as they are in reality, which is the most amazing blue I have ever seen. I'm still trying to capture this.

As for food, I feed mine a combination of frozen and live food. They've never touched a flake in their lives, although I tried hard to get them to eat dry food, and I have a cabinet full of just opened and hardly used dry food which I bought for them. They want the real thing.

And the last bit which of advice is keeping them in a well planted tank. Not only do the plants give them a feeling of safety, they also clean the water better than any filter, taking out many nasties from the water. Rams, it seems, like riccia especially, for some reason. They're always nibbling on the stuff and the things in there, and having two pairs in the tank, this is where the territorial disputes often take place, as they just can't keep themselves from going there.

Hope this helps...

Last edited by untitled at 23-Jul-2005 02:35[/font][/font][/font]

thats a good start, i am looking for different opinions any way so thats good

keep it coming

thanks

[edit] by the way your rams are beautiful untitled

Last edited by *Insert Username Here* at 23-Jul-2005 22:00

Now that I think of it, I do have a few specific questions.

Question 1: In a 55 gallon tank, how many Blue Rams could I get away with in there?

Question 2: Are dither fish necessary? If so would Cardinals make good dither fish for them?

Question 3: How long does it take them to mature?

Question 4 (for untitled): How can I get wild Blue rams? Like online or are a lot of blue rams sold in stores wild or captive?

Question 5: What types of plants would you recommend keeping with them? like are there any that they don't like or will dig up?

thats all for now but I'm sure some more responses will spark some more questions from me

1. That depends on whether you're looking for pairs, or all fish of one gender. Also, what other fish would you like? The ones in the stocking list from your other thread? In that case, two pairs would be *possible*, though I'd personally stick with one. If both pairs become breeding pairs, they would definitely fight with each other. I saw a tank once with two ram pairs that were either spawning or preparing to spawn. They were not happy with each others' presence, let me tell you.

2. Rams can be nervous fish, so dither fish would be helpful. Small tetras and other small Characins (pencilfish, hatchetfish) work well. Cardinal tetras would be fine.

3. This one I'm not sure on, but I think that rams are sexually mature by six-eight months of age. Definitely under a year.

4. I can help you here. You can order wild German rams from Aquabid, or search for them in stores. Most fish store rams are farm-bred; when a store actually does get wild ones in, they are usually labeled as "wild". The store that I used to work at has a batch of wild rams in right now, but I don't know if you're willing to make a two or three hour drive both ways just for fish. They do have Corydoras schwartzi though, and a bunch of other species. As far as I know, they've got the best Corydoras selection in the state.

5. They are fine with just about any plants. I've never had nor heard of problems with rams digging up plants. They will dig pits in the gravel for their fry when breeding, but that's about all the digging they do.


Last edited by sirbooks at 24-Jul-2005 12:20

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And when he gets to Heaven, to Saint Peter he will tell: "One more Marine reporting, Sir! I've served my time in Hell."

Yeah im bobbling back and forth with stocking ideas.

the 55 I beleive I decided on...

20 Cardinal Tetras
10 Panda Cory's
4 Blue Rams
1 or 2 BN plecs

the 29 gallon I decided on...

1 Pair of Blue Rams
10 Cardinal Tetras (I know not much different from the 55)
8 Schwartzi Cory's

I might switch where the Cory's go though since Pandas are much smaller.

And the 2-3 hr drive both ways to a fish store is not unheard of here

I will check with my lfs to see if they are wild or not. They have wild fish, but they don't label them as wild for some reason.

Sirbooks has answered all of your questions, so I don't have much to add, but I will add what I do know.

About the dither fish, they do help a lot, not only to make the fish feel more secure, but also to be a to let the rams take out their aggressiveness (the little they do have) rather than on each other. Knowing that you're looking to breed them you might want to stay away from tetras. I've not had tetras myself, but I've heard many accounts where tetras were too quick for the rams and managed to eat the eggs/wrigglers/fry without the parents being able to do much. I found out that guppies are good dithers. They're not pretty clever (apologies to all guppies lovers), they're rather slow and so they stay away from the rams. You might want to keep only one sex of guppies or you'll end up breeding guppies instead of breeding rams. I must admit I don't like guppies at all, so I don't keep them either...

Cories are also not a very good idea if you want to breed the rams. They're built like tanks and it takes a lot of energy for the parents to keep them away from the spawn. Parents often end up so exhausted and stressed that they end up eating the eggs/offspring themselves. I'm not much of a breeder as I let my fish do what they want, but knowing a serious breeder (the breeder of my fish) he stays away from cories.

Plecos are even worse than cories, sorry to write off all the fish you want. Like cories, they're built like tanks, but unlike cories, they can harm your rams as well and I've seen this happening. Most people don't realise that plecos got a set of spikes (couldn't find a better name, sorry) on either side of their face. They use them when they need/want to and they're pretty sharp, one of them used it on me.

As alternatives, I can offer ottos instead of plecos as they're gentler. Instead of cories I would suggest amano shrimps. They're good scavengers and they eat algae better than any other critter, in my experience.

Rams sexually mature at around 3 months, when they're still rather small. The picture of my fish spawning was taken when they were 3 1/2 months old. It was their first chance to spawn as before they were in the same tank with 200 other juvenile rams...

Where to get wild rams? I guess aquabid would be a good place, but certainly don't know where you can get them in america. I'd trust Sirbooks with his information, he's in the business. I'd suggest either getting wild fish of one sex and good quality german fish of the other sex. The colours on wild fish is usually drab compared to fish bred for their colours. A combination will allow you to get the best of both world. The breeder I know have a waiting list for his fry and they're worth being on that waiting list. Luckily for me, I didn't have to be on his queue...

I make these suggestion because you seem to want to do it more seriously than the average fishkeeper, it's not that I mean to make things very difficult for you. You can easily purchase a breeding pair and just breed them, you don't need to go through all that. A good place to start looking for quality fish would be some fish association. Those might have classifieds where you can look for fish or even post a wanted add. Here in Britain we have a cichlid association. It's like a parallel universe of fish... With the fish I can get through there, I don't need to visit a fish shop for the rest of my life if it's cichlids I'm after, and I'll get better fish for cheaper... And even if someone doesn't have the fish you want, they probably know someone who can help you. It's like a bretheren of fish.

Rams don't bother plants at all, so any plant would be good. As I said, they especially like riccia, so if you can keep some for them let them enjoy it! Pieces of wood in the tank are also appreciated as this is their favourite place to spawn.

Hope this helps...

Well it was the 55 gallon that I am going to leave breeding up to chance instead of trying to get them to breed and raise fry...going to be a show tank instead of one of my experimental tanks

Bolivian Rams are not too much different than Blue Rams other than size and color. I have kept Cardinal Tetras and Panda cory's with Bolivians and not really had problems. They would usually stay away or the Bolivians would scare them off. Pandas I think are not so much built like tanks like the other cory's are, Pandas are rather puny and weak, but they are still fun to have and watch so I keep them

I do see where you are going with the Pleco, however. thanks for the warning

I think this is what my final stocking will look like for the 29 gallon...

8 Cardinal Tetras (I guess to cut down on the ammount of fish trying to eat babies if any babaies come to be)
6 Panda Cory's
and the pair of Blue Rams

The 55 WILL be a show tank and will have...

20 Cardinal Tetras
10 Schwartzi Cory's
4 Blue Rams (All males probably, maybe a pair I don't know)
6 Ottos (though i have heard of Blue Rams killing ottos before)

Thanks for all the information/advice

Rams killing ottos? It almost sounds like science fiction to me. I have both in my tank and the rams don't give them a second look. Sorry, I had to start with that. You would need an extra courageous otto and an extra aggressive ram to have an otto killed. Okay, to the rest.

Why 4 males in the 55? Two pairs will be fine as long as there are visuals helping them to determine territories (plants, rocks, etc.). You'll get some interaction between both pairs, but they learn to respect each other's territory. Any aggression that will occur will be on the border line and they usually prefer to slowly withdraw than actually fight. Neither couple is going to breed in the centre where the territories meet but rather as farthest as possible from each other.

Now, don't get me wrong, I have nothing against your chosen fish (well, except of the tetras, I don't like them, but that's a matter of taste) and I keep cories with my rams. On the other hand, I'm not too bothered about breeding and I prefer it that way for the time being.

I find Bolivian rams to be quite different to blue rams. Being robust is one thing, but they're really hopeless when it comes to aggression, even the smallest fish freaks them out. However, being more robust does mean they scare fish more when they protect their fry. When I kept them with cories the cories used to go into hiding when the parents were patrolling around with the fry. Other than that, I find that they're much gentler and timid than the blue rams. If they ever have mud wrestling for rams, I would put my money on the blue ram.

For your show tank, may I urge you to get some Amano shrimps anyway? They give one hell of a show, on top of being very useful, and none of your fish will bother them (or they the fish). I think I'm going to have a shrimp tank in the future (with rams! a tank is not a tank without rams, in my opinion...)

Anyway, your plan sounds good to me. In the case that something doesn't work in your 29g with regarding the breeding, you can temporarily move some fish to the 55g anyway.

Good luck, and don't forget to update us!

Last edited by untitled at 24-Jul-2005 17:00

It seems I can change everything over and over again and then I get to wanting to do something else with new information

Well i'm not really a fan of Amano shrimp but I will give 'em a shot I just really like the Cory's. So are you suggesting Cory's AND amano shrimp, or one or the other? (29 or 55 gallon?)

I think I will go with the 2 pairs of Rams now that I think about it. I had gotten the impression that you were trying to get me away from that, but I guess I was wrong

OK...so final final stocking for the 55 will be...

2 pairs of Blue Rams
20 Cardinal Tetras
8 Schwartzi Cory's
8 Otto Cats
some amano shrimp

29 I think is still in the works :%)

Thanks for all the help you have been untitled and you too Nick

And don't worry I will keep you posted.

Start lookin for a follow-up thread around December if you want to know what happens with my 29 gallon(have to get a new one, my other broke), but my 55 might soon be underway (probably gonna stick to fake plants for a while in the 55)




Last edited by Nameless at 24-Jul-2005 17:17

You can definitely keep shrimps with cories, they won't bother each other. Amano shrimps don't bother any fish, but big fish might eat them, but your fish will be fine. I just recommend them because they're so much fun to have, but if you don't want them you don't have to have them...

What an awesome thread on blue rams and the photos are mint.. I'll be attempting this myself, have been busy the last couple months gettin all the stuff.. The rams are on hold (private buy) unless he flakes on me, hope the heck not. Want the tank set up and established a bit before introducing the rams.

What about Bristlenose pleco ? Do you see a problem there ? Also, I've heard the Amanos can and will steal eggs and go after the fry, any advise there ? I have 7.
Guppys and Platys are dithers. Will be 4 rams in 40 gal.

Last edited by DaFishMan at 28-Jul-2005 23:12

The Amazon Nut...