Finally! German Blue Rams..

Well I have finally found my German Blue Rams. ;D I picked three out, not sure if they are female or male yet. they are being QTed in my 29 gallon tank for two weeks before moving them to their home in the 55 gallon with the Discus.
I am waiting for them to color up, but they are new just got them yesterday afternoon and I'm sure they are still stressed in their new home.
Since taking photos are hard, as they do move to the back of the tank a lot, I have added a youtube video of them for you to check out. ;D
What do you think of my new guys?? Any idea on the gender yet?
Thanks, ~ kate

 

They look beautiful. They also look like the ones that are farm raised indoors since they don't have all of these brilliant colors. The way to tell the gender is by looking at the second ray on the dorsal fin. If it is long, it is a male if not, you got a gal.
Tom

 

Thanks Tom!
I hope they do end up getting more color as they mature. I have my own personal feelings on wild caught or tank raised fish. I just wouldnt feel right about taking fish out of their natural habitat and put in my tank. It just seems mean to me. At least tank raised fish do not know what they are missing by being raised in the tanks and not in the wild where they were free.
Maybe by buying online at some point I may have better luck with getting some GBR's with a lot of color.
As far as gender goes, its still hard to tell, even looking at the spikes on the front of the dorsal fin. I believe at least one of these guys is a male, and possibly a female, but the third one, I just can't tell yet. For all I know they are all males!! But boy are they cool fish! ;D I would love to get more of them.Already two have made claim to areas of the tank, the third one is hanging out in the back from side to side and getting chased off when it comes around the others. Any idea on other dwarfs that can be mixed with them?
thanks, ~ kate

 

I love the shape and color of those guys! congrats!

#1 in the video looks like a female
#2-male
#3- looks like a male

those are my guesses
you might be able to do cockatoos

 

I know that cockatoo cichlids are very peaceful little dwarves too.
Tom

 

Do any of them have a rosy belly or a bit of pale purple on the belly? If so those are females.
carol

 

I love the shape and color of those guys! congrats!

#1 in the video looks like a female
#2-male
#3- looks like a male

those are my guesses
you might be able to do cockatoos

HI Kevin, thanks!
well, your guess is as good as mine! I just do not know.. there is not enough color showing in the bellies to determine. The black spot is not dark enough for me to tell if there are any blue specks around it. Just not enough color to give me a clue...
I do like the cockatoo dwarf... nice to hear they can get along with the GBR. I will have to research their PH tho and see if it is compatible with my tank PH.
~ kate

Do any of them have a rosy belly or a bit of pale purple on the belly? If so those are females.
carol

HI Carol, I just spent some time observing them again trying to figure out who is who. Still no clue. There is no pale purple or rosy belly on them.
A question tho...
I hear that you can tell by the dorsal fin. So as I look at them, the front dorsal fin where it is black, I observe the first spike shorter than the other two, but the other two are taller than the rest of the dorsal fin. Any clue on this for me? I am going to take a drive tomorrow to bring home some females and I am hoping that I can figure out if these are all males or not before then.
thanks, kate

 

if you can get a breeding pair and you get some babies, let me know if you would be willing to ship to north carolina

 

Kate usually the male will have the first dorsal spine longer than his other dorsal spines. sometimes it's hard to tell if their young because they may be close to the same length. a female will have just a hint of a rosy or pale purple color that gets to be a very intense color when shes ready to breed.
Carol

 

HI Kevin
If they do decide to pair off and breed, I would be happy to send you some babies. ;D All you would have to do is pay for shipping....
BUT I hear that its not easy to raise the fry tho. I will let nature take its course and see what happens.
~ kate

 

The fry are so very tiny and cute. I managed to get them to breed but not to be able to raise the fry.
Carol

 

Kate usually the male will have the first dorsal spine longer than his other dorsal spines. sometimes it's hard to tell if their young because they may be close to the same length. a female will have just a hint of a rosy or pale purple color that gets to be a very intense color when shes ready to breed.
Carol

HI Carol
well... it seems that the very first black spike is shorter than the other black spikes. But it seems that way with all of them. Tho I do not believe I have all females. Do the females fight together as the males do? None of these rams have a hint of color in the belly tho.
thanks, kate

 

I didn't have problems with mine fighting but they did chase and what I called play fight.You know kind of jump at each other and chase but no harm was ever done.
they may still be a little young which is a good thing. Younger fish are usually stronger and adapt easier.
Carol

 

Well, my three have laid claim to three separate areas of the tank. so when one comes over 'the line' the other will advance to it and they both will go through a sort of back and forth movement watching each other til one swims away. Two of them will actually swim circles around each other and lip locked at least once that I saw, so these two were pretty mad at each other at that point. Other than that, I have not seen any real aggression to the point of one getting hurt. They seem to know when to back off. By their behavior it makes me think that there is two males and one female in the tank, either that or three males and one low rung male that is not a threat at this point.
I can't wait to take that drive tomorrow to a brand new Fish store to pick up the female ( I hope) rams. ;D
~ kate

 

Have fun!!! Rams are one of my favorites. If your tank will handle it space wise two females for each male is ideal.
Carol

 

well I will have room in the discus tank for them. I may go with two pairs in there.
Tho it was explained to me on that ratio,( 1-3) that once the rams pair off, the third female will get attacked by the pair. That it is a good idea to get only pairs in your tank to avoid this from happening. I really like the behavior of these little guys and will enjoy having them in the tanks.
~ kate

 

Actually one male and two females was what I was suggesting. It keeps the male from wearing the one female out. sometimes they will even kill them with their attentions.
You will absolutely love them.
Carol

 

HI Carol,
I knew what you meant... I mistyped the (1-3) ratio part. lol...
Ok.. then when I go look for these females tomorrow I will figure out the one male to 2 female ratio. I sure hope they know which is which or I will end up coming home with more males! yikes!!
~ kate

 

HI Carol,
I sure hope they know which is which or I will end up coming home with more males! yikes!!
~ kate

LOL Just a good excuse to go back and get more
Carol

 

I also think a good way t sex them is that the males are generally longer in my experience with the females being more stumpy, I think you may have 2 males and one female

 

LOL Just a good excuse to go back and get more
Carol

LOL..... but can I have them all in the tanks?? lol...I would if I could..
btw... does anyone know if they get along with angel fish??
thanks, kate

I also think a good way t sex them is that the males are generally longer in my experience with the females being more stumpy, I think you may have 2 males and one female

thanks Howeyg
I will keep that in mind when I look at them tomorrow! Looking at the dorsal fins again.... and again...lol. It seems that one of them has a shorter spike in the front and two actually look like they are longer. So you may be right there! ;D
well.. off to get a good nites sleep and dream about GBR's! heheh...
can't wait to head out tomorrow, its about a 60 mile round trip and I'm heading out early!
~ kate

 

did you get a couple more today?
not to brag or anything but I was the first to say 2 m and 1 f

 

HI Kevin
No I didnt get out yesterday as I wanted to. But that was a good thing in the long run. Here on the Cape, holidays and summers get pretty crowded. And even in autumn it still is. I forgot that it was a holiday weekend and a lot of folks were leaving Cape. (Only one main road in and off the cape). So hearing on the radio of the back up for a number of exits going off, I did the right thing and stayed home on this rainy day and finished up with painting my living room walls instead of sitting in traffic with everyone else. The store that I was going to, I haven't been to yet and found thru mapquest that it was about a 48 mile one way trip. ugggh.... So my husband said that he will take me on sunday morning. I think that's a nice idea, we have fun on our road trips, and it gives him a chance to see what fish there are out there. Plus we usually end up coming home with more stuff than I planned on.
But I will be taking a ride to petsmart today and bring the lone serpae and black skirt tetra back and hope that they will take them off my hands. It seems sad to see them be the only ones of their species in the tank, I know they are not happy like that and I have no plans on getting anymore of them, so they can go back into the tanks and be happy with the others and hopefully find a good home with someone else. Not a big exciting trip for me, and I do need to pick up a heater for my great neice's birthday this weekend for her betta tank, as I promised.
Sooooo.. it will be a long week for me waiting to make this trip for some more GBR's..... oooohhh welllll......
~ kate

 

did you get a couple more today?
not to brag or anything but I was the first to say 2 m and 1 f

Did you really mean to say 2 males and 1 female?
Carol

 

Also, check their pelvic fins. The male have extensions on them, as well as the caudal(tail) fins, which the females are lacking.

 

Also, check their pelvic fins. The male have extensions on them, as well as the caudal(tail) fins, which the females are lacking.

Hi! NEN! (is abbreviated hope you don't mind lol)
thank you for the tip... any possible way you may have a photo or two to show me this extension and caudal tail fin difference? It sure would be a big help for me to identify the females when I go get them. ;D
~ kate

 

Kate- check the pics out over here. some of them are labeled Male and females. there are really some good examples.
Ram photos
carol

 

Kate! OMG! The Rams are SOOOOOOOOOOOOOO ADORABLE ;D ! I love your tank setup too! Everything looks so beautiful. Ahh ... you're making me want to get my Rams so bad!

 

After re-examination, I have to retract my statement about the caudal fin. But, the pelvic fins do have extensions on them. I posted a picture with Bolivian rams as the example, I'll see if I can find it.

Edit:

 

Kate- check the pics out over here. some of them are labeled Male and females. there are really some good examples.
Ram photos
carol

HI Carol
thanks so much for the link... my goodness.. those are some beautiful ram photos! Will my guys ever color up like that? I sure hope so. So I believe I can tell the difference... hope so anyway. My confusion is in the very very first black spike closest to the front of the head. That one appears to be shorter on all the rams. I believe that was what I was looking for. So from the photos it looks like its the second and third black spike that is longer on the males and that the females tend to be about the same size as the rest of the dorsal fin. Correct me please if I am wrong on this observation..
~ kate

After re-examination, I have to retract my statement about the caudal fin. But, the pelvic fins do have extensions on them. I posted a picture with Bolivian rams as the example, I'll see if I can find it.

Edit:

Thank you NEN...
and btw I love those bolivian rams as well. I assume they do ok in the tank with the GBR's?
~ kate

Kate! OMG! The Rams are SOOOOOOOOOOOOOO ADORABLE ;D ! I love your tank setup too! Everything looks so beautiful. Ahh ... you're making me want to get my Rams so bad!

Good morning Isabella
thank you for the compliment on the tank set up. I do need to get more plants for the rams. I'm thinking of trying the java fern moss in low clumps. They may like that. I try to keep that tank as clean as possible at all times. Now that its been running for 7 months, the diatom invasion is finally passed. thank God!! lol...
I want more rams too! hehe...
~ kate

 

did you get any new girls today?
if not, ask that lfs to hold the ones that had ich and once they have finished their ich meds, go back and pick them up

 

did you get any new girls today?
if not, ask that lfs to hold the ones that had ich and once they have finished their ich meds, go back and pick them up

HI Kevin,
I called another place that I was going to head out to yesterday and they had no new delivery as they expected. So of what they had, the only one that interested me was the bolivian ram, but they only had one. So for a round trip that was going to take almost three hours, I said forget it. So ended up in Petsmart and picked up some silk plants because their live plant selection was dwindling and a new air pump. Wish they carried dwarf rams there, but they dont.
As far as those two females with ICH, they are treating them and it would be a week before I guess they would be ready. Ive decided to give them a call today and ask them to call their supplier and see if he can send in some females. Which would be on wed. I was hesitant on asking them, since I wasn't too happy with the coloring on the males and wanted to try somewhere else first. And wondering if the ICH came in from the suppliers??? So you can see why I am hesitant about buying from them.
My only other alternative right now is a trip to the next state which will be a five hour round trip. For that I am waiting for the extra so that I can make that trip worthwhile...

~ kate

 

How are your 3 doing right now?
Tom

 

HI Tom
the three are doing really well. I noticed them starting to color up nicely. They are still pretty shy when I come to the tank, but one alpha male does come out and stares at me from time to time. They are comical. I am still debating the gender of one. I actually am starting to think it is a female. Its not as brightly colored as the others and hasnt really made a territory for itself. Just swims around where ever it feels like it. I know that two are males for sure, as they like to confront each other over territory. No fighting as yet, just the old stop and go, back and forth then they loose interest and move on back to their corners.
I will try to get some video of them now that they are looking better. I have tried taking photos but once the camera comes out they hide in the back of the tank and its near impossible to get a good clear shot of them.
The one that I think is a female, her black spike is about the same height as the rest of the dorsal fins, where the other two's black spike is much higher this is one reason I think its a female. the other reason is that it does not color up much and is much more dull and showing more dark spots ( which can be stress lines too). But nothing definitive as the colors that the males have.
But I am so glad that they are doing well... I'm just waiting on the females so that I can introduce a pair to the discus tank.
If I'm not mistaken... I see that you have yours with angel fish? How is that going? Let me know please.. as I am wondering if I can add a pair to that tank as well??? thanks for asking about the rams...
~ kate

 

Glad to hear that they are doing great. I have a pair as well as 6 others in with my pair of angels. They only really see each other when my angels chase some food to the bottom. Other than that, they are doing great, no aggression towards each other.
Tom

 

That is great news to hear! I would really like to introduce them to the angel tank. And maybe split up these males soon. Can you tell me also, how do the GBR's do in a tank by themselves? Would it be ok to just put one in the angel tank for now? Or should I wait for the female?
Thanks, kate

 

That is great news to hear! I would really like to introduce them to the angel tank. And maybe split up these males soon. Can you tell me also, how do the GBR's do in a tank by themselves? Would it be ok to just put one in the angel tank for now? Or should I wait for the female?
Thanks, kate

I don't know, I have always had mine together with other fish. I would assume that if there is a pair, they would do less protecting of the territory and more breeding, maybe, I don't know for sure.
Tom

 

HI Tom,
IM going to post some photos of the GBRs and of the ram I think is a female.
I think I should start a new thread called: ID gender of GBRs.
I will do that now...
thanks for your help! ~ kate

 

HI Tom,
IM going to post some photos of the GBRs and of the ram I think is a female.
I think I should start a new thread called: ID gender of GBRs.
I will do that now...
thanks for your help! ~ kate

I replyed.
Tom