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all I have been able to get my bolivian ram to eat is sinking pellets. He/She will not touch any food on the surface, only sinking food...this has limited my options on feeding, it is not interested in vegetables or anything I can attach a weight to sink you the bottom. I think this diet of hakiri sinking food and a few differant brands of sinking cichlid pellets may be whats causing lack of color in the fish.

Also, the ram refuses to go into open water except to grab food. He/she stays on the bottom, never going up more than 6" obove the gravel, and spending his/her time nestled behind plants,driftwood,and rocks. I have a 29 gallon "tall" tank, with a load out of 6 lemon tetras (every time I add a couple to get a school going a couple of the other ones die,lol, I havent been able to keep a school of more than 6 at any given time), 2f 1m cherry barbs, and 2 corries(I had a disease of some kind hit the corries a few weeks ago and lost all but two).

the water is semi soft, ph 7.0, tank at 78 degrees,twin aquaclear 50 over the back filters and two airstones...30% water changes weekly.

is this behavior normal or am I doing something wrong?

Personally, I think your bolivian ram would feel better with another one or two bolivian rams - safety in numbers. I had 4 at one point in a 29 gallon, and they were fine together until a strong pair formed and the other 2 were picked on. Other keepers I know have routinely kept 4-6 in 36" long tanks and they seem to do great.

Eric

i think additional rams are out of the question...the tank is extremely tall...20" tall to be exact...very tall for a 29 gallon, and has poor gas exchange, I may be wrong, but I was told that because the tank is so tall, that I would be ill advised to over populate the tank.

Also there isn't enough bottom surface swimming area for another ram, and this ram I have is full grown, and the fish stores in the area only sell babies...I don't think it would be a good idea to buy a small 1.5" baby ram and throw it in with my territorial 3" ram...

Anyway, the lack of numbers may explain the timidness of my ram, but is there anything i can do about its diet?

I have 2 bolivian rams in my tank. was lucky enough to get a male and female which are attempting to breed

my 2 are fairly timid as well..they mainly stay behind driftwood and plants and stay within the middle/bottom areas of the tank.

Mine are fairly fussy eaters and it did take a while to find foods they like..otherwise they spit it out. I highly recommend frozen blood worm! they can never get enough of this! and i rotate food with sinking pellets (i found they like JBL) and flakes (sera goes down well).
they wont surface for foods so make sure you find food that sinks or stir the water slightly and make the flakes sink.

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Truth doesn't always win friends but it influences them

thanks for the tips! if a breeding pair is timid than my singles behavior makes sence then, just wasn't sure if the little fellow was being cared for poorly.

as far as the food, by frozen bloodworms you mean fresh frozen, as freeze dried bloodworms do not sink?

I wish i could feed him/her flake food to give him/her more variety, but any flakes I put in my cherry barbs and lemon tetras snap up before it reaches the bottom,lol...they have 20 inches before it reaches the gravel to eat it,lol.

Your fish is normal Reun

I think they are just timid fish.. mine have no competition.. they are the biggest fish in the tank with only 4 cories and 4 danios as companions.

The frozen bloodworm is the one that you find in the freezer of your LFS , mine dont like the freeze dried variety.

Like i said, with flakes stir up the water and hopefully some will sink to the bottom.

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Truth doesn't always win friends but it influences them

The rams are probably psychologically malajusted to their setting. There may be something about the way the tank is arranged, or placed that makes them feel exposed.Sometimes they do their thing normally when people arent around, but hide immediately on seeing a human, have you tried observing them without them seeing you?

Rams arent known for being surface feeders thogh, they usually feed near the bottom or in the midwater. Frozen bloodworm are an excellent idea , they also like brineshrimp, glass worms and blackworms. Freeze dried worms are the safest to use, but some fish arent stimulated by them, so try the fresh frozen ones. In terms of dry foods, I always found mine looked better on tetra prima than on hikari cichlid food.

Can you post a photo of the tank so that we can see how the setup looks? Sometimes stratifying the spece in a tank differently can bring the rams out of their shell a little.

http://home.comcast.net/~fitzworld/twentynine.JPG

thats the 29...the ram wont go into the open area to the right of the tank except to grab food, even when people are away from the tank. I know its an open area save the few pieces of slate, but thats where my tetras swim and where i drop food for the ram and cories(they seem a tough messy so i give them room to grab their food).

I understand the shy behavior seems normal, I just like the ram and enjoy seeing him/her.

I will also look into some frozen blood worms

Having seen the piccy it might simply be that the corner is too bright. Perhaps they feel too exposed to go there.

yes, if i add more decor to the other side I am worried about the mess the food is going to make...guess I will just be content when the ram does decide to poke out its pretty face...

At least now I know the behavior is normal!

EDIT:

P.S. thanks for all the help everyone!

How about a few floating plants?

I have tried to find some floating plants, but none of the LFS have them in my area, even went to some fish stores in a larger town an hours drive away, and no luck...the only floating plants I found were high light plants, and I only have a 5w incandescent bulb(tucked away inside the hood next to a 15w neon) and natural light from a window during the day. I have a larger 15w fluorescent tube under the hood as well, but I only turn it on when cleaning the tank, the fish are very timid when I leave that light on all the time to help with plants growth. I tried leaving the light on with a timer for 8 hours a day for 3 weeks. during those 3 weeks the tetras huddled together and wouldn't play, the ram and the corys would not come out from hiding untill the light was off, even to eat.

Not to mention, when I tried higher lighting I had a explosion of algae.

The only floating plants the fish stores carry here are high light, and only one will special order plants, and its for a quantity of 20 or more, and i dont have the need or the money for that many plants.

P.S. the ram is still where I can see it, it still swims in the open corner by the glass behind the log where I can peek at her. I was mainly concerned that I was doing something wrong

Java fern will grow fine when floating - I've had big ball sized hunks that grow like mad.

It's so common I'd be surprised if they don't have it at your LFS.

Also common, watersprite, grows well floating.

Eric

Try some Hornwort. Almost any fish store that carries any kind of plant will carry this stuff. It is many times pushed down in the substrate to look like a plant growing out of the substrate. And usually it is weighted. Just take the rubber band and weight of it is and it will float very nicely. I use it all the time for breeding tanks. It will work well under low lighting situations as well. And the best part of all... It is usually only about a dollar or two.

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There is always a bigger fish...

Ive often found with floating plants, since they are so close to the lights is not lack of light thats the problem, its usually the heat. Most people forget that the strip of air in the top of the tank might be easily get into the 90's f.

My java fern sinks...

hmm... I used to have 2 bolivians (now im finding the one that is still alive a buddy, his other one got unexplained fish death). When these two were together, food was gone in no time!Mind you we have tigerbarbs, brochis and kribs... so it's always gone just like that! I find that rams tend to have a thing for bloodworms (frozen!), our remaining one doesn't eat as much as it used to... perhaps thats because his buddy is gone. My advice? Buy one more! It's fun to see them puff up at eachother, and overall it will probably eat more!

I have 2 but i'm not sure of the gender. They readily take any food i place in the tank but i'm a huge fan of frozen foods. I like to give them plenty of frozen brine shrimp and blood worms. The spitting of foods seems to be a normal way of eating for them, they chew the food extracting nutrients and spit out the leftovers which are usually picked up by my catfish. The hakiri pellets are a good food. i don't believe the shyness should be anything to worry about.