endymion500

I have an empty 30 gallon tanks I am getting ready to set up and I want to put german blue rams in it. I keep researching and people are saying that you should put them into an estiblashed aquarium. Does this mean after I am done cycling I should be okay? Or should I cycle put some other fish in and then add the rams? And if so, How long will it take to get the tank established to where it needs to be?

Austin {Aquarist}

with fish and a cycling agent it shouldn't take long at all maybe a week and a half to cycle. If I were you I would use 6 zebra danios and some bio spira or stability (http://www.drsfostersmith.com/produc...m?pcatid=12021)

good luck!

Sabi

I can't exactly explain 'establish', but after cycling you should put other fish in the tank for the tank water to get kinda 'old'. Leave them in for a month or two, maybe more.... Thereafter add the rams. Rams prefer the water like this.

Tom

Like Sabi said, the rams like an established tank. So about a couple of weeks to a month and a half, then you could try and add the rams, this is just so that the water doesn't have any spikes(ammonia, nitrite, nitrate) and suddenly kill all your fish. But the longer you leave the tank, the better cause they will do better in a tank that has aged a lot longer. If you have another tank, that is already cycled and has fish in it, just take some of the filter media and let it sit in the new tank for a couple of days and it should cycle really quickly, then you would need to add something to stabalize it. If you don't already have a tank, just let it cycle without fish cause it will stress them out so much. Hope this helps.
Tom

sallers

Personaly i'd leave putting them in for at least 3 months, my tank has been running 6 months now and put a pair in last week, unfortunately though I lost my female yesterday

Sabi

Sorry to hear that. They can be quite hard to acclimatize sometimes.

04_si

add the rams after your ammonia has dropped to 0, and nitrite has dropped to 0 (or close) and do small frequent water changes and the rams will be fine.

make sure theres plenty of places for them to hide

Good luck, so far these are easily my favorite fish