3 Gbrs Is There Hope The Male Will Stop Bullying? Solutions?

Hey all,
I have a 30 gallon tank with a 9 gallon sump. I have one larger male German Blue Ram and 2 smaller females.

Water permaters are 0 ammonia 0 Nitrites and 5 Nitrates.

It is a heavily decorated tank with lots of wood and fake realistic plants with a white sand substrate. This is my second time with GBRs I had a wonderful gentle pair my first time and they passed after a year (vacation feeding issue.) The results this time are radically different.

The male has claimed the entire tank as his. I got 2 females so he couldnt just concentrate on one. He is bigger than the females and just constantly chases them with a seemingly endless amount of energy and the females look pretty unhappy.

My questions:
1. Is there any sort of hope that he will eventually tolerate them especially if they become sexually developed? (they don't have a dropped tube right now so I assume they are not)

2. Have you heard of a LFS allowing to swap for a less aggressive or smaller or paired male?

3. If I put the male in his own small tank for a couple weeks while rescaping the tank. do you think I would have a different result when I reintroduced him? woudl they be able to redefine terriroty? or would he just go full bully again? This would be a massive inconvenience for me but I can't just sit there and let him harass the females to death either.

4. Last Last resort I suppose would be some sort of tank divider which I would very much dislike as there are cardinal tetras in the tank as well (15.)

5. Can you think of any other tips and tricks to help?

As a note, the females have found hiding places in the corners of the tanks that they can't move away from without being harassed, its almost impossible to get them a good amount of food.

I have done enough research to discover this is a common problem (which is why I got 2 females rather than one. But I am hoping there is a solution. GRBs are my favorite fish and I set up the aquarium specifically for them!

Please let me know what you all think.

Tim

 

What’s the temperature? How sure are you that the others are female?

 

Thank you for the question!

80-81 degrees the smaller females have pink bellies and are slimmer where he has a rounder head and no pink belly. Id be happy to provide pictures if you like.

 

Pop that bad boy up to 83-84. Try to encourage breeding. If they aren’t interested in breeding, a lot of the time this will happen with trios. Another thing it could be is your water hardness. If the water is too hard or the PH is too high, they won’t want to breed. The females, or all of them, could be too young to breed which can also make them territorial.

 

turned tank up a tad... PH is somewhere 6.8-7.0. Ill let you know how it goes.. I have the feeling the females are a little to young cause of their size but I am really hoping I can find a solution. thanks for the input! if you think you have anything else to add please let me know!

 

Pop that bad boy up to 83-84. Try to encourage breeding. If they aren’t interested in breeding, a lot of the time this will happen with trios. Another thing it could be is your water hardness. If the water is too hard or the PH is too high, they won’t want to breed. The females, or all of them, could be too young to breed which can also make them territorial.

You sir have saved the day! In the matter of hours it has totally worked! (mostly) he paired with one of the females! Thank you so much for the sound advice. I now have a couple follow up questions:
1. He paired with one female leaving a very unhappy female ram out... now both the amazingly colored male and female are bullying her. any suggestions here?
2. I have a slight concern for my amano shrimp keeping the temp long term at 83. Most I have read says the can tolerate the higher temp but I don't want to be harsh on them either. If I turn the temp down eventually will the rams go back to fighting?

Thanks again for your wonderful help.

Tim

 

Hey that’s awesome!!

I meant to warn you about that. It’s extremely common to get aggression even when you only have one male. Personally, I’d try to get a 20 gallon long for the pair. Even a 10 would work (though the 20 would be better) for the pair. If that’s not an option, I’d rehome the lone female. Turning the temperature back down might cause them to start fighting again, so I’d avoid that.

Unfortunately I know very little about shrimp, I’d maybe post it in the freshwater invertebrates section!

 

Hey that’s awesome!!

I meant to warn you about that. It’s extremely common to get aggression even when you only have one male. Personally, I’d try to get a 20 gallon long for the pair. Even a 10 would work (though the 20 would be better) for the pair. If that’s not an option, I’d rehome the lone female. Turning the temperature back down might cause them to start fighting again, so I’d avoid that.

Unfortunately I know very little about shrimp, I’d maybe post it in the freshwater invertebrates section!

As an update:

So now the male seems to be taken to both females and the females are duking it out (though in a much less violent manner.)
The male now seems to be tasked with keeping the females away form one another and breaking up any fights (escorting them back to their sides of the tank)

This is much more pleasant to watch than the male bullying them.

Lastly, I think the male nipped/damaged and stressed them enough initially that I am concerned their slightly injured fins could get fin rot. I am keeping an eye out but have never been able to successfully treat it in the past. I suppose if I catch it early Ill have a better shot.

 

Just keep up with water changes and consider using Seachem Stressguard.

They have funny little disputes lol. One of my males layed eggs with a female and then they broke up and he got a different female to lay eggs, and then the two females started fighting haha.

 

Just keep up with water changes and consider using Seachem Stressguard.

They have funny little disputes lol. One of my males layed eggs with a female and then they broke up and he got a different female to lay eggs, and then the two females started fighting haha.

Thanks for the heads up.
Ill be getting a bottle of that.
One of the feamle is a little listless. My little hospital tank arrived today. I may be too late for her. we shall see.

 

Is she breathing fast and hard?