Eskielvr

Does anyone have any info about German Blue Rams? I saw a picture of one and fell in love and wanted to get some for my 20 gallon (which houses Neons, Otos, a Cory, and 4 shrimp). I read they are difficult and if conditions are not just right they can die easily. I also fell in love with the Gold Rams. Would these be a good fish or are they too high maintenance?

Butterfly

I have had Rams in the past and loved them. They are very sensitive to water conditions. My Gold Rams seemed to be more aggressive than the Blue Rams although I think their just a different color morph. It could have been just the ones I had I don't know.
If your going to breed you need 1 male and 2-3 females. Plenty of hiding places and flat rocks to lay their eggs on.
The fry are extremely sensitive to water conditions and hard to raise. They are tiny and need freshly hatched brine shrimp, infusoria or something equally tiny to eat to survive.
Carol

Eskielvr

I don't plan on breeding. I don't have the time to mess with it, let alone have a seperate tank for the young. If they want to breed that's fine, but the eggs or babies would be on their own. I get fish to enjoy them, not to breed. Besides, what would I do with all of them??

So, I'm assuming they probably wouldn't be good with the neons, shrimp, and others then? If I knew what water conditions they're sensitive to I'd be able to determine if I could keep them or not. The only thing I can't control is the Ph, which is usually around 7.0 to 7.4 or so, and the hardness, 0 to 3 degrees both KH and GH. I don't even know what that means let alone know how to adjust it. But all the other things such as ammonia and nitrite are non-existant in it.

Butterfly

By sensitive to water conditions I meant ammonia, nitrites and nitrates. You have to religiously keep up your water changes. they are beautiful and spunky little fish. They never attacked any of my other fish but they defended eggs against angels.
Carol

Richard

We recently lost one of our Blue Rams to a birth defect that we only noticed after we'd made the purchase, and since I'm a sucker for trying to nurse a fish back to good health despite its condition, we never exchanged him.. we still have one female who's in great shape but I've noticed she's getting a bit territorial.. she stakes out one corner of the aquarium she's in and sometimes nips away at any of the two YoYo Loaches sharing the tank that come into that area.. they are completely unphased by her and sometimes even 'whisker' her back, playfull little buggers that they are.. I'm trying to set aside some time to make a run to a fish-farm that raises them along with other exotic species, so I can get maybe another male and possibly another female.

Long story short, they're remarkably beautiful and temperamental fish that can sometimes be nippy, but I'd recommend them to anyone with experience in tank and water maintenance, in a heartbeat.. also, it's recommended that you put no more than two in a twenty gal. aquarium.

Eskielvr

Ok, thanks for the info

As far as the ammonia and nitrites/nitrates are concerned, that's no big deal. Right now I have 0 of each. I'll just need to recalculate my limits if I decided to add 2. I already have 6 neons with 3 other scavengers/algae eaters. I wanted to get 6 more neons, but it seems if I get 2 Rams I'll run out of room. I may just stick with the smaller fish for now, since that was what I had originally planned and I can have more fish that way. I guess I'll have to wait on the Rams for now