helen38

i had 2 female blue rams in my 55gl so decided to get them 2 friends, bought 1 male and 1 female so hopefully the ratio is correct. the male ram found himself a girlfriend within minutes of going in but now is spending his entire time chasing any fish that comes within a foot of his new lady friend. is this normal ram behaviour? any help is appreciated.

04_si

it's normal because they have paired up. Rams are a 1-1 ratio cichlid

helen38

so would my best bet to be go and 2 males for the other 2 females?

04_si

you could. The pairs might fight but if your 55 gallon is heavily planted or sort of split into two sides by a bigger decoration then the pairs can establish their own territory

helen38

came home from work today and the 2 females i had spare so to speak were both dead, would the other female have killed the others so no competition?

cerianthus

In well decorated 55 G tank, even breeding pair of ram would not have killed other 2 females unless this pair was very aggressive (unlikely).Have bred rams on numerous occassions and never experienced mated pair killing other rams , especially in 55G. Of course breeding pair will be very aggressive, but they do not move too far from their breeding site.
Is their beeding site in the middle of the tank?

helen38

as far as i can see they have no breeding site yet, they go all over the tank but always together

Jess

Reading up on Rams, they like heavily planted tanks and caves. Do you have any thing like a flower pot for a cave? Maybe if they had this security they would calm down.

helen38

its heavily planted with caves and other hidey holes

04_si

Rams even in pristine water sometimes just die.. Maybe this is one of those weird cases..

It's happened to me with 2 male rams one day apart.

Shortly after I had 2 females and no male. The 2 laid eggs together but with no male nothing wouldve happened with the eggs. Plus they were eaten over night.

So I went out and got a male. Few days later a pair had formed and spawned. The pair picked on the lone female and she ended up dying. Eggs were eaten and the male wouldn't leave the female alone and he killed her as well.

Weird things happen... rams can be really agressive at times and really fragile other times...

helen38

thanks for all your input, ill stick with the 2 i have left and see how they go, fingers crossed they'l be ok