Jensen

Ok, so this may seem like a bit much but thought I would give some back story. We have always had a tetra/rasbora tank, first it was a 20gallon now in a 55gallon. We did some research to find that we could put GBR's in with them so we got 3 of them the store received more and we bought another 4 a week later.(there is still a lot of room as all of our tetras are 1".)two days later we lost one, chalk it up to stress, or whatever the others, leaving 3 males and 3 females very easy to tell with ours as females have nice pink/purple bellies, were doing wonderful. In fact they all claimed their territory we had two pairs and two singles. the one pair that were diligently cleaning their rock/area out was looking promising. Then one day the single female came and stole the male and the "nest rock" kicking the original female out. Then 2 days later they had eggs. The original female having been kicked from her mate/home was picked on by everyone she has become a loner and now in the last few days has become darker in color and stays at the bottom of the tank. We aren't afraid of losing fish as we know it happens but we have never seen something like this before. Would stress coat help maybe? we were holding off as we were told GBRs are sensitive to chems. The rest seem to be great great color/attitude. We have had them about 2mos now. any advise is appreciated thank you.

cerianthus

I would not add any additives unnecessarily including water conditioner.
How about isolating the lone female in large breeding trap for observation w/ extra holes on the side for better circulation. At least wont be bothered/harassed by others.

How about checking the water parameters? I dont think testing will hurt unless already done.

agabr123

i'm with cerianthus, i wouldn't add any chemicals/conditioners to the tank (unless doing a water change that is). having said that, it may be worth it to do a small water change, depending on when your last one was. readings will help as well. you may just need to give her a little time to re-establish her territory and perk up some, i'd keep an eye on her for now

Jensen

Thank you both for your advice, I cannot find her at all today fearing the worst we wont be replacing her. As the others seem well I don't think it was tank conditions upset any how expensive beautiful fish that I am sad to have lost.

agabr123

i'm very sorry to hear that gbr's are gorgeous fish, it's unfortunate that they're so sensitive

Jensen

Good news is I just woke up this morning to find a rock covered in eggs and dad diligently guarding the site, last time this happened all the tetras and pleco ate caviar, we have a another tank all set up though if anything comes of these.

agabr123

congrats

MizRamzi

Hence my name I too love those GBR's. But alas I've had no success with them at all. One week their doing wonderful, the next their gone. I've tried just about everything I can to keep both the blue and gold but to no avail. The only one I've been able to keep, and I mean one has be the Bolivian. He's now in my 75 with the big guys.
Whatever your doing, keep it up. I hope to learn from you as I don't want to give up on keeping them.
If you do wind up with fry I would be interested in adoption

Jensen

Well all I can say is we have had 5 of each serpe, and neon tetras, harlequin and sissortail rasboras, albino cory fish and a pleco in a 55 gallon tank for some time before we got the blue rams so the tank was very "lived in" clean though we gravel vac and change our filters monthly. Seems as though this was ideal for these guys as they settled in and paired up quickly. We feed them cichlid pellets and tropical flakes on a daily basis they seem to like the flakes more then anything else we have tried. We turn our light of at night and turn on in morning we found that the gbr's are slower to "wake up" so we give it 10mins or so before we feed, or else the tetras gobble it up. Weekly we offer blood worms and algae tabs. Our tank is natural collected river rock we live in the great nw and have access to clean beautiful natural rocks and thats what we use in all of our tanks(boiled of course). We have some sunken wood from our LFS (where the gbr's were bought) and all live plants.