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I need some help figuring out what my ram has. I got her 3 days ago with a male. They ahve been eating well and swiming all over in curiousity. But now the femal seems alittle bloted and has a red spot on her sides "well more pink" and is having white fecies along with regular. Aloth i do feed brine shrimp so maybe thats what is causeing the white fecies. The weird thing is a male krib i just bout 2 days before that in another tank got the same spots. He had them when i found him dead. He didn't have them the night before.
Tank is a 20g tall with 2 bio wheel mini's and a sponge filter. ammonia 0 Nitrite 0 Nitrate 40 alittle high but working on bringin it down. I have tanken several pics hope they help.

[link=http://community.webshots.com/album/398579723VDWkwZ]http://community.webshots.com/album/398579723VDWkwZ" style="COLOR: #0000FF[/link]

That ram is showing courtship colours! Congratulations, you must be doing something right. IME when they get pink bellies the females will also look a bit chubbier, possibly holding eggs? Not sure but I wouldn't be concerned about it.

I would still do what you can to get the nitrates down, they will really appreciate it (and maybe reward you with some little rams) . Take them off the brine shrimp for a few days to see if it is causing the white poop. If it is caused by the brine shrimp then you obviously won't see any white waste. It is common for rams to be infected with flagellates when you purchase them (you are probably familiar with flagellates if you keep discus, they seem to be really susceptible to them as well) so it is important to find the source of the problem, if any. Do some massive water changes to get rid of those nitrates and possibly induce spawning or at least courting behaviour if you're lucky. Rams will not object to water changes as large as 50% as long as you are careful to keep temperature and pH constant. If you like, mix some fresh garlic juice in their food (it is a natural remedy for parasites and appetite stimulant). You can do this by cutting a garlic clove and rubbing the exposed part on the food or strain some crushed garlic through a cheesecloth to extract the juice over the food. Personally I like to use garlic as a tonic every once in a while, the fish love it and I haven't seen intestinal parasites since I started using it.

Good luck with the new rams.



That's my old male, passed away from old age a few months ago unfortunately but he is definitely missed.[/font]

Thx, I do use galic extreme when ever I feed them.

Well I lost her to unknow cuase we ssupect bacterial infection. Guess I will have to find him a new mate

Rams are very delicate. High nitrates in your tank may be a consideration in the bacterial infection that you believe killed it.

These fish are very susceptible to changes in conditions. Particularly if your tank is a new home. Problems that I have found:
1. Variance in conditions. LFS in this area have water with conductivity of greater than 1600 ms. My water is 300 ms or less. Therefore, I use a drip method to acclimate the fish over an 8 hour period/
2. Temperature is too low. Rams are warm water fish, that is, temps above 80F. Oftentimes the lfs will maintain the fish in temps below this range. The fish will be weakened...
3. Rams need clean, fresh water. The little buggers do well on a discus diet of water changes. Nitrates should be below 20 ppm. Getting the nitrates there means tank maintenance and water changes.

Wrap-up is slowly condition your new fish to their home. Boost the temperatures. Increase your water changes and tank maintenance. Oh, one last item, add two females for your male!

__________
"To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism; to steal from many is research."
researched from Steven Wright