Well I have finally found my German Blue Rams. I picked three out, not sure if they are female or male yet. they are being QTed in my 29g tank for two weeks before moving them to their home in the 55g with the Discus.
I am waiting for them to color up, but they are new just got them yesterday afternoon and Im sure they are still stressed in their new home.
Since taking photos are hard, as they do move to the back of the tank a lot, I have added a youtube video of them for you to check out.
What do you think of my new guys?? Any idea on the gender yet?
Thanks, ~ kate
They look beautiful. They also look like the ones that are farm raised indoors since they don't have all of these brilliant colors. The way to tell the gender is by looking at the second ray on the dorsal fin. If it is long, it is a male if not, you got a gal.
Tom
Thanks Tom!
I hope they do end up getting more color as they mature. I have my own personal feelings on wild caught or tank raised fish. I just wouldnt feel right about taking fish out of their natural habitat and put in my tank. It just seems mean to me. At least tank raised fish do not know what they are missing by being raised in the tanks and not in the wild where they were free.
Maybe by buying online at some point I may have better luck with getting some GBR's with a lot of color.
As far as gender goes, its still hard to tell, even looking at the spikes on the front of the dorsal fin. I believe at least one of these guys is a male, and possibly a female, but the third one, I just cant tell yet. For all I know they are all males!! But boy are they cool fish! I would love to get more of them.Already two have made claim to areas of the tank, the third one is hanging out in the back from side to side and getting chased off when it comes around the others. Any idea on other dwarfs that can be mixed with them?
thanks, ~ kate
i love the shape and color of those guys! congrats!
#1 in the video looks like a female
#2-male
#3- looks like a male
those are my guesses
you might be able to do cockatoos
HI Kevin, thanks!
well, your guess is as good as mine! I just do not know.. there is not enough color showing in the bellies to determine. The black spot is not dark enough for me to tell if there are any blue specks around it. Just not enough color to give me a clue...
I do like the cockatoo dwarf... nice to hear they can get along with the GBR. I will have to research their pH tho and see if it is compatible with my tank PH.
~ kate
Do any of them have a rosy belly or a bit of pale purple on the belly? If so those are females.
carol
Hi Carol, I just spent some time observing them again trying to figure out who is who. Still no clue. There is no pale purple or rosy belly on them.
A question tho...
I hear that you can tell by the dorsal fin. So as I look at them, the front dorsal fin where it is black, I observe the first spike shorter than the other two, but the other two are taller than the rest of the dorsal fin. Any clue on this for me? I am going to take a drive tomorrow to bring home some females and I am hoping that I can figure out if these are all males or not before then.
thanks, kate
Kate usually the male will have the first dorsal spine longer than his other dorsal spines. sometimes it's hard to tell if their young because they may be close to the same length. a female will have just a hint of a rosy or pale purple color that gets to be a very intense color when shes ready to breed.
Carol
Hi Kevin
If they do decide to pair off and breed, I would be happy to send you some babies. All you would have to do is pay for shipping....
BUT I hear that its not easy to raise the fry tho. I will let nature take its course and see what happens.
~ kate
Kate usually the male will have the first dorsal spine longer than his other dorsal spines. sometimes it's hard to tell if their young because they may be close to the same length. a female will have just a hint of a rosy or pale purple color that gets to be a very intense color when shes ready to breed.
Carol
Hi Carol
well... it seems that the very first black spike is shorter than the other black spikes. But it seems that way with all of them. Tho I do not believe I have all females. Do the females fight together as the males do? None of these rams have a hint of color in the belly tho.
thanks, kate
I didn't have problems with mine fighting but they did chase and what I called play fight.You know kind of jump at each other and chase but no harm was ever done.
they may still be a little young which is a good thing. Younger fish are usually stronger and adapt easier.
Carol
Well, my three have laid claim to three separate areas of the tank. so when one comes over 'the line' the other will advance to it and they both will go through a sort of back and forth movement watching each other til one swims away. Two of them will actually swim circles around each other and lip locked at least once that I saw, so these two were pretty mad at each other at that point. Other than that, I have not seen any real aggression to the point of one getting hurt. They seem to know when to back off. By their behavior it makes me think that there is two males and one female in the tank, either that or three males and one low rung male that is not a threat at this point.
I cant wait to take that drive tomorrow to a brand new Fish store to pick up the female ( i hope) rams.
~ kate
well i will have room in the discus tank for them. I may go with two pairs in there.
Tho it was explained to me on that ratio,( 1-3) that once the rams pair off, the third female will get attacked by the pair. That it is a good idea to get only pairs in your tank to avoid this from happening. I really like the behavior of these little guys and will enjoy having them in the tanks.
~ kate
Actually one male and two females was what I was suggesting. It keeps the male from wearing the one female out. sometimes they will even kill them with their attentions.
You will absolutely love them.
Carol
Hi Carol,
I knew what you meant... I mistyped the (1-3) ratio part. lol...
Ok.. then when I go look for these females tomorrow I will figure out the one male to 2 female ratio. I sure hope they know which is which or I will end up coming home with more males! yikes!!
~ kate
i also think a good way t sex them is that the males are generally longer in my experience with the females being more stumpy, i think you may have 2 males and one female
i also think a good way t sex them is that the males are generally longer in my experience with the females being more stumpy, i think you may have 2 males and one female
thanks Howeyg
I will keep that in mind when I look at them tomorrow! Looking at the dorsal fins again.... and again...lol. It seems that one of them has a shorter spike in the front and two actually look like they are longer. So you may be right there!
well.. off to get a good nites sleep and dream about GBR's! heheh...
can't wait to head out tomorrow, its about a 60 mile round trip and Im heading out early!
~ kate
Hi Kevin
No I didnt get out yesterday as I wanted to. But that was a good thing in the long run. Here on the Cape, holidays and summers get pretty crowded. And even in autumn it still is. I forgot that it was a holiday weekend and a lot of folks were leaving Cape. (Only one main road in and off the cape). So hearing on the radio of the back up for a number of exits going off, I did the right thing and stayed home on this rainy day and finished up with painting my living room walls instead of sitting in traffic with everyone else. The store that I was going to, I havent been to yet and found thru mapquest that it was about a 48 mile one way trip. ugggh.... So my husband said that he will take me on sunday morning. I think thats a nice idea, we have fun on our road trips, and it gives him a chance to see what fish there are out there. Plus we usually end up coming home with more stuff than I planned on.
But I will be taking a ride to petsmart today and bring the lone serpae and black skirt tetra back and hope that they will take them off my hands. It seems sad to see them be the only ones of their species in the tank, I know they are not happy like that and I have no plans on getting anymore of them, so they can go back into the tanks and be happy with the others and hopefully find a good home with someone else. Not a big exciting trip for me, and i do need to pick up a heater for my great neice's birthday this weekend for her betta tank, as I promised.
Sooooo.. it will be a long week for me waiting to make this trip for some more GBR's..... oooohhh welllll......
~ kate
Also, check their pelvic fins. The male have extensions on them, as well as the caudal(tail) fins, which the females are lacking.
Hi! NEN! (is abbreviated hope you dont mind lol)
thank you for the tip... any possible way you may have a photo or two to show me this extension and caudal tail fin difference? It sure would be a big help for me to identify the females when I go get them.
~ kate
Kate! OMG! The Rams are SOOOOOOOOOOOOOO ADORABLE ! I love your tank setup too! Everything looks so beautiful. Ahh ... you're making me want to get my Rams so bad!
Similar Aquarium Fish Forum Threads 
I picked three out, not sure if they are female or male yet. they are being QTed in my 29g tank for two weeks before moving them to their home in the 55g with the Discus.
I just do not know.. there is not enough color showing in the bellies to determine. The black spot is not dark enough for me to tell if there are any blue specks around it. Just not enough color to give me a clue...
lol...
but i was the first to say 2 m and 1 f 
