Shaina

I love rams, but no place around here carries them...ever. My LFS won't special order them either, so I pretty much gave up on getting any. Then yesterday when I went to see if they got a new shipment of Pearl Gouramis, I happened across a tank full of GBRs and, in a weak moment, bought a pair (I think m/f, one is definitely a female and the other is as male-ish as I could find in the tank).

So they are in my hospital tank, which is well-established, and I did a water change the day before I got them and the parameters look great except for my pH, which is rather high as always (the tank they will end up in has a somewhat lower pH due to driftwood, etc.).

So my question is, what do I need to be doing to ease their first 2 weeks while they are in quarantine? I understand that GBRs are really touch-and-go during that period.

There's a thin layer of gravel in the tank, 3 bunches of live water wisteria, and 2 caves (one hamster tube, one stacked shale). Filtration is provided by a sponge filter and a Aquaclear 20, and it has a steady temperature of 78 degrees F. This morning I fed them a small bit of Omega One tropical flakes.

I have a bunch of spare plastic plants I could through in there for extra shelter if needed (the tank as a whole is still pretty bare). They are mostly chilling together about an inch above the substrate, and are always in a different place than they were when I left. I turned the lights on this morning, but left them off yesterday when they were adjusting.

Any advise on keeping these cute guys alive would be much appreciated.

susitna-flower

One link I have found very informative is:

http://www.cichlidae.com/tank.php?id=368

It sounds like they may do better a little higher temperature.

This article suggests 80-85 f...which would also help to eliminate any problems with ick...

Good Luck, let us know how it all goes.

Peterpiper

I have found that "blacking out" the back and the sides of the Q tank helps keep the stress down.. and try to have the Q tank in a low traffic part of the house.

Shaina

Thanks, I'll go up the temp a few degrees. Thanks for the link too!

Two sides are currently blacked out, and the quarantine's in the bedroom, so the only time people are in there is when it's dark.


They seem to be happier now, exploring the tunnels and such. They are willing to venture forth from one another's sides, and the "definitely female" one has regained a bit of color after washing out when captured at the store.

**Keeps fingers crossed**

Thanks guys

Shaina

Here's a few pics of them from today: as I said they are quite washed out right now:

Shaina

Okay, you can see above in the pictures that one of the fish has much darker blacks than the other...the difference is even more pronounced today. At the store they were roughly the same color, but of course they were more stressed/unhappy than they are now, hopefully.

Should I be worried that one is still pale?

Shaina

Well they are both eating voraciously now...flakes (Omega One Freshwater...hopefully that's a good brand), freeze dried bloodworms, and Shrimp pellets are all consumed as soon as they break the water surface and sink down enough for the Rams to see them. They still hang out together a lot, but are much livelier swimming around their tank.

It's only been about 6 days, so I'm not even close to out of the water (so to speak), but at least I haven't yet met with catastrophic failure. Another week and I plan to move them to the 29 gal, where hopefully they will happily make themselves at home.