Keeping Gold Nose Electric Blue Rams

TL;DR- Fell in love and bought a juvenile gold nose electric blue ram at my LFS, seems to be adjusting well with an angel, 3 kuhlis, and 8 cardinal tetras. I've read a lot about EBR's but just looking for your personal experiences keeping rams and any issues you've had, tips, and so on.

I'm sorry in advance for the long post! I took a trip to my LFS today looking for a German Blue Ram and kuhlI loaches for my 36g bowfront and sadly they didn't have either. When I asked the owner's daughter if they'd been able to get any in since last week, she said no but she had just gotten some Gold Nose Electric Blue Rams and they were absolutely beautiful. After 20 minutes of furiously researching on my phone while standing in front of the tank, I decided to give in and buy one along with 8 cardinal tetras. My final stocking plan is 1 juv. angelfish, 1 juv. ram, 8 cardinal tetras, 8 of another tetra, and 10-12 kuhlI loaches (potentially more if possible if I decide not to do the second school of tetras).

After bringing them home, I really focused on slowly acclimating the EBR and the tetras because of how sensitive rams are. I first floated the bag for about 30 minutes, added a partial betta cup of water (I use the cups from PetSmart for tank maintenance) and allowed it to float for another 20 minutes, added more water and floated for another 20 minutes, and continued this process until the bag was almost full. Then, I dumped out a little over half the water in the bag and added one last partial cup of water and let it float for another 15 minutes before introducing them to the tank. I've left the lights off in the tank since I got home early this afternoon with the exception of when I fed my angel and kuhlis their dinner. I was surprised to see a few of the tetras grab some small bloodworms but the ram didn't want to eat yet. It's been swimming around a lot and exploring the tank, swims to me when I stand next to the tank, just seems to be adjusting really well.

So anyways, I was just wondering the experiences you guys have had with keeping rams! Issues you've run into, foods they seem to favor, things to watch out for with them, stuff like that! I know the basic needs but would love to hear your experiences.

 

. Mine likes to catch sinkin pellts

 

. Mine likes to catch sinkin pellts

Aw! That's so cute! I have a bunch of frozen foods and they drive my other fish completely nuts so I'll probably be feeding those a bunch unless I find something it (she, I think?) favors

 

you have a balloon variety, mutation in spine curvature. are you going for just ornamental? or plan on breeding?

 

you have a balloon variety, mutation in spine curvature. are you going for just ornamental? or plan on breeding?

HI I didn't even have it a full year and it died, they are problematic fish due to that mutation think id stay away from anything labled "balloon"

 

admittedly your specimen did look super cute and relatively healthy looking. bummer

 

HI Ashley,

Sorry this post must have slipped through my fingers, I know you posted it a while ago. How is the Ram doing?

 

HI Ashley,

Sorry this post must have slipped through my fingers, I know you posted it a while ago. How is the Ram doing?

It's fine! She's doing great, thankfully! Haven't had any issue so far. I've named her Armageddon, because she loves to terrorize the loaches by stealing pellets and I worry she's going to eat them too much one day if I don't hide them well enough

 

Beautiful tank! I'm glad there aren't any health issues. I do have a full Gold Ram male that is really aggressive and eats feeder guppies, he has to stay alone in his own tank because he attacks everything!

 

Either my angel Calypso or her loved to torture cardinal tetras. I had a school of 10, and by the time I could get my last piece of QT equipment and get it running there were 3 left! I definitely relate there. A few weeks ago I had to take a cave decoration out to re-silicone the leaves and Armageddon started to chase my angel occasionally so I'm starting to think it was possibly her. She stopped literally as soon as I put the cave back in and just sat at the top begging for food. They're definitely cichlids, that's for sure!

 

Yeah, most people think of them as community fish that are peaceful, but you still have to be careful!

 

Definitely! They're really gorgeous though. I'm sort of glad it didn't work out with schooling fish in there though, I've got sort of a bad taste in my mouth with them by now

 

What's your water temp?

 

I saw this before I went to bed and meant to check in the morning but forgot all about it. I think I have it at 79-80