Rams

[Ryan]

Looking to breed my rams. They have started the pairing process and i want to be prepared. What water conditions do the need for spawning, egg hatching, and larvea development. I have also heard of people removing the male for some odd reason. What is this reason and why even bother taking him out. Reading other posts I have also read that they both are and are not parenting fish. Due to the fact that they are cichlids i believe they are would I be right. I also know that each pair is different and they may not parent or it may take a few spawn for the to catch on. Please send me the info you can i would like to be read for when the time comes.

[Oxquo]

Remove the female not the male. It is the male that guards the eggs with Rams. The best breeding is done in Winter though I have had many Summer spawns. I like to breed them in soft water so hornwort is a big helper here or use a chemical softener. pH they do breed best around neutral or slightly lower and look and thrive best here too. once fry reach the 1/8-3/16" mark I get the male out and grow fry up with hard tap water so they get all the trace elements they need to grow fast and strong. Rams are pretty slow growing for dwarfs but 3 meals a day through out will help more if you can during the young stages. bare bottom tank is easiest to clean and advoid sucking up fry when changing water. sponge filters are the best here as the bottom corner filters often still suck up fry. using a product like fry saver may help too as rams are often caught by gill disease at an early age, at this point you would see fry in the 2 week even up to one month age just vanish for no apparent reason.

As for spawning, 10 gallon tank, at 80-82F with 7.0 soft water, feed parents lots of live or frozen 2 weeks before 3 meals a day works good. I like using two pairs together until one pair spawns. then using a cool water change. at 25% bringing your temp down to around 74F and letting it go back up naturally has worked well. Also at this time adding blackwater extract or a peat filled mesh bag to the tank works wonders and gives them a calm setting in which to spawn as well as helping to lower the pH a bit more. After spawn remove with little commotion as possible the other pair and the female to a different tank. At this point the other pair will likely be ready to spawn so keeping close water properties is important. let the second pair spawn and remove the two females after acclimating them back into the maintenance tank now you will have two different sets of fry and if kept separate until they are sexable you should be able to breed males from tank A into females of tank B and reverse. Feeding the fry on 100-200 micron pearls has worked well, some have used BBS from the start but I find that this method lets mostly males survive as they are big enough to eat it alot of females aren't. Sera micron is a great food if pearls aren't available for the first two weeks. Microworms will also be greedily taken but their nutritional value is next to zero for a small growing fish. At 2 weeks fry will easily take BBS, 200-300 golden pearls and even some finely powdered vitaboost flake. Around 6 weeks I begin with feeding grindals and cut feedings back to 3 a day from 4-5. I have usually removed the male atleast at the 2 week stage and at 6 weeks am beginning small 10% water changes of tap water although leaving the peat bag in the tank. At this point I change filtration to a small outside power filter like a mini or 150 with a sponge over the intake, this ensures stronger filtration and cleaner water for the growing fry. You should now be close to sexing age. Although fry don't have to be separated at this age it does work better to divide males and females as you can between the 6 and 8 week stage if you can determine sexes. I guess I should have added that after the eggs are laid it should take between 36 and 48 hours to hatch although I have seen hatches at the 24 hour mark it depends solely on your temp. Fry will as in all fish grow faster at higher temps but with higher losses and slower with more color at lower temps with greater color and finnage. Higher meaning the 82F + and lower 78-80F range. Good luck with the spawning, hope something here helps you out a bit. Although they can spawn in a community no fry have ever made it . In the community though the female tries to guard the eggs and the male defend the territory this may be why they seldom make it past wiggler stage that and getting lost in the gravel.

[Ryan]

Wow it is nice to have somebody that used to breed these guys right here if something goes wrong. So were looking to sell any of your rams i am always looking to expand my collection. Thank you for all the info. Do you mind if i copy and paste it to a word document and print it out?

[Oxquo]

Copy and paste away,lol. As for selling my rams? many people have tried to talk me out of them and even more into entering them into a fish show. They will likely have one spawning season left before they die atleast if I am lucky. I always prefer not to breed in the summer as that takes up valuable fishing time. Anyways I have just gotten rid of the last of my juvies a week ago. My ram parents will travel with me as will most of my other geophagines. Glad you found something I wrote helpfull.

[Nandopsis]

Copy and paste away,lol. As for selling my rams? many people have tried to talk me out of them and even more into entering them into a fish show. They will likely have one spawning season left before they die atleast if I am lucky. I always prefer not to breed in the summer as that takes up valuable fishing time. Anyways I have just gotten rid of the last of my juvies a week ago. My ram parents will travel with me as will most of my other geophagines. Glad you found something I wrote helpfull.

I know i tried to get those little beautys off of you. To no avail.