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I just got 2 German Blue Rams and I have to say that I love these guys. I use the term "guys" loosely as they are pretty young and difficult to sex, but I think I have 2 males. I will eventually get 2 females and hope they pair off, as I would like to try to breed this fish because I have heard they have wonderful parenting skills. They seem to be doing well after their first night in my tank, wish me luck!

Good luck with them, blue rams are a beautiful little fish , if a little sensitive to water quality. Remember to keep the nitrates down, keep the water slightly on the acid side, preferably below 20 ppm, and the diet variety up, and they should do well.

Would a diet consisting of tetramin tropical flake food, shrimp pellets and frozen bloodworms be okay? Or should I get some specialty cichlid pellet?

I think you will find a good general overall diet is the best. I went for the Bolivian Rams reason being they are less sensitive to water parameters. Other wise I would have chosen some of the more colourful rams.

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Keith

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That sounds good so far truestar, you can also give them stuff like tetra prima, and the tetra pro colour flakes does seem to get the best colour out of them, mine seem to prefer that over standard flake, the mini hikari cichlid pellets, just the standard stuff in the small size, and they seem to like bits of finely chopped shellfish too. Frozen cockle and mussel etc.

Well, they are meat lovers and mini predators!

Mine dine on frozen brine shrimp (sometimes with spirulina), bloodworms, beef heart and tetra color bits. They are also mad about tetra min wafers. If you provide mussels as suggested, make sure that the bits are small enough to fit the mouth of the ram which is not very big.

I had a few blue rams that suffered badly when there wasn't enough food variety. My flakes weren't the newest but not beyond the expiration date and I was feeding 3 or 4 frozen foods but they still developped a few health issues I couldn't explain. I got new flakes and due to some other picky fish started feeding 2 more types of frozen foods that were a mix of 5-10ingredients themselves and all the problems went away. If your relying on flakes I'd get at least 2 brands, a cichlid pellet, or something like new life spectrum pellets. If your relying on frozen get mixes instead of just bloodworms or 1 thing. I ended up getting multipacks like this: http://www.drsfostersmith.com/product/prod_display.cfm?c=3578+7927+8038+8130&pcatid=8130 along with angel and butterfly diet: http://www.drsfostersmith.com/product/prod_display.cfm?c=3578+7927+8038+10697&pcatid=10697 and giving them a different cube everyday. I saw a huge improvement in hardiness and color after that. Partially because of them I nearly phased out flake foods and now only use them maybe once a week.

I've been meaning to feed a more varied diet. I'll try the brine shrimp and other meaty foods. Just wondering, would earthworms be okay if the pieces were small enough? I have read that some people cultivate their own and feed their fish some, like once a week.

Earthworms are good nutrition, on the proviso that you do actually raise your own and dont just get them from the garden, two major reasons being pesticide uptake, and nematode worms carried in the earthworms themselves. If you can, raise them from scratch in sterilised soil humous (you can buy it in blocks)and feed them vegetable leftovers and salad leaves intended for human consumption. You have to let it all rot down of course.

Then of course you have to consider rams dont have the biggest mouths, so there might be a good deal of earthworm chopping in your future .

I thought I could use them as an occasional treat. They would probably be the only live food they'd get, I prefer to feed freeze-dried and frozen over live because of cost, can't get a job around here till your 16.

Brineshrimp really aren't that great. They have the least amount of nutrition of most of the frozen foods unless vitamins are added. I only use them as a treat or for awhile when a fish won't eat anything else. Your better off with most anything else you see before brineshrimp. Now the brineshrimp flakes I got are much more concentrated and work well to use as a supplement for standard flake mixes or when I can't thaw out frozen food for the day.

Earthworms are way too big. You'd have to do lots of fine chopping because they are not only long but too thick even after you cut them into sections. Redworms might work better and then you can try your own vermicomposting to cut down on both the amount of garbage paid to have hauled away and get free live food. http://www.nyworms.com/vermicomposting.htm
http://www.aquarticles.com/articles/management/See_CulturingRedworms.html

Pinhead crickets are rather cheap and small enough for rams but they don't sink until they've died and floated around for awhile so mine never got any before the congo tetras. In their own shallow tank it might work.

I would try to culture my own redworms but I don't think it would be worth just for the Rams, but maybe I'll try it anyways. I believe that BBS are more nutritious than adults so I was gonna try hatching some eventually. Would the rams eat them? Could I raise them to adulthood and then feed them live?

Also, what are some of the ways to sex them? I know one is a male but I don't know about the other one. I know about the tall 3rd fin, the pink belly, and the rounded fins. Are there any other ways? The one that may be female has black on the first 3 fins, but they aren't any bigger than the other fins, the fins on top are also more rounded. They have been ramming each other lately too, does this mean they are both m/f or is one male and the other female?

Hi Truestar,

Congratz on getting blue rams

In the 'black spot' look for a blue spot. If it has one it is a male.

The Amazon Nut...