Update on my German Blue Ram pair

[CaJoOnce]

Hii! Update on finding a partner for my GBR!
Finally, I've found my male GBR a partner! And they are getting along well with each other! It's still a juvenile though, but no aggressions happenning. I have 2 sparkling gouramis as dither fish, do you think they work well as dither fish? This pair are in a 40L tank and I'm going to try to breed them. How long do u think it will take for them to start breeding? Hope it'll work! Temperature is at 28°.

And now, my other problem is the other gbr i bought a month ago, i thought it was a female back then, but it didnt get well with my male gbr. When I introduced the male into its tank, they started fighting. I then separated them again after a day and asked in a different forum about its gender. And they told me probably a male. It didnt have its natural color back then.
This was it a month ago.

And now it looks like this, i keep seeing a pink like belly but idk, can you help me with its gender so that I'll know what gender to buy next time so that it has a partner hehe. Thanks in advance!

 

[PlantedCommunityTank132]

I have no experience with gbr's but After looking at pics from the internet, I feel like its a female.

 

[coralbandit]

Tough call but I still lean towards that being a male .
The pair can spawn anytime ,she is mature enough .
The pink belly may indicate she is developing eggs .
I never had any luck keeping any fish with rams for spawning .
Rams are sort of psycho anyways .

 

[CaJoOnce]

Tough call but I still lean towards that being a male .
The pair can spawn anytime ,she is mature enough .
The pink belly may indicate she is developing eggs .
I never had any luck keeping any fish with rams for spawning .
Rams are sort of psycho anyways .

Oh, thanks! Then I'll find another female then!
Do i need to do something to activate spawning, like rising the temps, maybe or 28° is okay? I'm currently feeding them bloodworms, daphnia and sometimes fishflakes/tabs.
Oh really? Then is it better for them to be alone or do i need to choose another species as dither fish?

 

[coralbandit]

Most who have had success breeding rams did it with rams in their own tank . No dithers at all .
90% used bare bottom tanks that were less then 20g.
Most either got lucky in the beginning or artificially hatched the eggs .
It is really on the pair to see if they raise fry .
Few get to see such a great thing .
Do you know about your water hardness?
I used water with a TDS of 100 or so and temps of 82+.

 

[CaJoOnce]

Most who have had success breeding rams did it with rams in their own tank . No dithers at all .
90% used bare bottom tanks that were less then 20g.
Most either got lucky in the beginning or artificially hatched the eggs .
It is really on the pair to see if they raise fry .
Few get to see such a great thing .
Do you know about your water hardness?
I used water with a TDS of 100 or so and temps of 82+.

Hardness is about between 50-120ppm.
Thank you!
I'll keep it on mind!
Time to remove those poor sparkling gouramis then!

 

[Cale24]

I briefly had sparkling gouramis in a tank with some rams - THEY ended up spawning haha. Both cool fish but if you're serious on breeding then as suggested just a pair of rams is the way to go.

 

[CaJoOnce]

It's been 2 weeks since I intoduced my male GBR to my female one. And today, I noticed that the female one keep cleaning the slate rock surface (i read that its a sign that she is about to spawn soon). The problem is that everytime the male sees her cleaning, he keeps chasing her. Do I need to worry about his behaviour? Is it maybe because its their first time?
Female vent is more exposed now than before. Means she's ready to spawn soon, right?
Here's a video of them.
20220202_115708_1.mp4

 

[CaJoOnce]

Good news: the female started to lay eggs.
Bad news: the male kept eating them.
Is this normal since its their first time?

 

[autvan]

Oh no!!! I have no advice but so cool, congrats!

 

[coralbandit]

It is sort of normal for rams to do odd stuff.
Some pairs do great and others struggle to learn .
Hopefully they will get better or you need a different male .

 

[CaJoOnce]

Update on my gbr pairs!
My old pair are about to spawn again soon! I'm noticing the female's tube getting bigger! Let see if this time the male will do better.
Meanwhile, finally bought another female about 2 weeks ago and paired her to my male gbr in my community tank. Today, they started spawning! Out of all the slates I put in the tank, they dug a whole on the substrate instead (not the ideal substrate to lay eggs)! They make a better pair than the first one. The male know what his doing. He fertilizes the egg and all. The problem is that since they are in a community tank, there's a low chance that the eggs or frys will survive. The corrys are irritating the pair, and keep invading the pit they dug even though the pair chase them.
Next time, I'll swap them with the old pair and put the new one in the breeding tank instead.

 

[CaJoOnce]

Hey guys! I'm back again with a good news! Finally for the third time, my first pair did a good job on the first step of spawning! The male learned how to fertilize the egg now! I hope they do well on raising the frys!!! I'm not planning on taking out the eggs and hatch them artificially. I want to enjoy how do they raise the frys themselves. Maybe in the future, I'll try hatching them artificially. I hope they succeed this time!

 

[PlantedCommunityTank132]

Yay, good luck. I think leaving parenting to the actual parents is better, than doing it myself.

 

[Linda1234]

Hey guys! I'm back again with a good news! Finally for the third time, my first pair did a good job on the first step of spawning! The male learned how to fertilize the egg now! I hope they do well on raising the frys!!! I'm not planning on taking out the eggs and hatch them artificially. I want to enjoy how do they raise the frys themselves. Maybe in the future, I'll try hatching them artificially. I hope they succeed this time!

Don't be discourage if it takes them several tries to get it right. This is normal for most cichlid. Also if the parents do end up being good parents the frys will still need very very small food to eat. Also frys are extremely sensitive to poor water quality.

 

[PlantedCommunityTank132]

If you need info on how to raise fry, Justins fish room is a great YouTube who specializes on ram cichlids

 

[CaJoOnce]

Don't be discourage if it takes them several tries to get it right. This is normal for most cichlid. Also if the parents do end up being good parents the frys will still need very very small food to eat. Also frys are extremely sensitive to poor water quality.

Thanks for the advice! Yes, I am now going to try to hatch bbs to feed them for the next days. From what I read, the eggs turn to wrigglers in 3-5 days? Then wait till they free swimming and feed them bbs?
Water parameteres are:
Ph- 6.5
Nitrate- 5-10 ppm
Hardness- 6°d
Temp- 28°C

If you need info on how to raise fry, Justins fish room is a great YouTube who specializes on ram cichlids

Thanks for the recommendation! I'll check out some of his videos then

 

[Linda1234]

Thanks for the advice! Yes, I am now going to try to hatch bbs to feed them for the next days. From what I read, the eggs turn to wrigglers in 3-5 days? Then wait till they free swimming and feed them bbs?
Water parameteres are:
Ph- 6.5
Nitrate- 5-10 ppm
Hardness- 6°d
Temp- 28°C

Thanks for the recommendation! I'll check out some of his videos then

A lot of folks use food smaller than bbs for the first few days for ram frys. Also when I said sensitive to water quality - i mean issue due to decaying food and similar.