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longhairedgit,

Nice pics!

Are you keeping the blues with the bolivians? If yes, how are they toward each other and how has your success been with blues?


My Scapes

....and WOW, how colorful your fishies are. What are you feeding to get that kind of color? Magical.

---

~~Melissa~~
"Beauty is in the eye of the beer holder."

Yep, Im keeping them together,the reds seem extremely passive although the blues do kick off now and again, it is however a fairly huge 120 gal tank, so they can get away from each other. Each species now "owns" an echinoda at each end of the tank, and although they do check each others home territory out theres not much aggression, a quick chase off and thats about it. The only exception is that the particular male blue ram pictured keeps trying to court the red females, but they seem to ignore him.

On the feeding front they get a big variety, all the three types of tetra crisp flakes, tetra prima (the reds are very fond of prima) Hikari cichlid complete,algae wafers, bloodworm, glassworm, brineshrimp and daphnia. I think the colour is primarily down to there being low light levels towards the bottom of the tank and the heavy plant cover. It makes them feel secure and consequently more vibrant.I think they are often brighter in dim tanks than in brightly lit ones, ironically both ways you dont get to enjoy the colour, cos in the bright ones they blanche out and in the dim ones you get yellow haze, but the camera shows up their true colour with the flash.

I currently have more blue ram eggs, but Im loathe to disturb them with the camera at the nest site because this is the first time they havent been eesob's.In fact I have a feeling they are being more protective towards their brood now, because the reds are competition.Thusly their temper is being displaced in a more normal fashion instead of turning on their own eggs. Fish are odd

The blues themselves were surprisingly difficult to acclimate, and needed stabilising with metronidazole. The ones I sourced were beautiful, but obviously suffering from a gastrointestinal infection that was giving them white stringy poo, namely protozoa. Now they are clear of the infection, they are thriving, which is lucky for them, because it looks like most of the remaining rams still in the shop have died.I have to admit, getting the ram specimens ive wanted has taken a bit of legwork, and visits to about 7 lfs's. This year the blue rams have been of rubbish quality, and they nearly all have protozoan infections, im seeing them die in shops everywhere near me. All for the want of a little antiparasite treatment.

Yet again I blame the all-in-one filter systems in the shops, The young rams were all in superb condition when they arrived as new stock , and Ive been watching them fade away from infections theyve obviously caught from the shops water. Shops suck sometimes.