German Blue Rams?

[Love Discus]

I know this is thw wrong section sorry.

Yesterday I picked up a pair of proven blue rams from my friend. he said they breed about once a week but always eat their eggs. he said he only had them raise one batch of fry.

So I threw these little guys in my community tank yesterday.

Today I came home from school to see that they were being really agressive, defending a whole half of the tank. Even raming discus 4 times their size. I looked behind the sponge filter where one of the two is always hanging out,, and they have laid eggs on the surface of the sponge!

what should I do? I think it would be cool to raise rams, but my hopes arent too high. And if the eggs are fertilized and they dont eat them will they make it off the sponge? The sponge is powerd by a 290 gph powerhead? or should I just say screw it, give them a 10 gallon and see if they try again?

http://img195.imageshack.us/img195/910/spmplipictank.jpg (http://img195.imageshack.us/i/spmplipictank.jpg/)

[lhalliday]

Tom, even if they dont eat them, what are you going to feed them? My ram fry wont take bbs for a few days and its hard to get food in there mouths in a big tank. I once let my rams raise the fry in a small tank and got to a 4 week stage. Had some children round at the house looking at them and they must of got nervous. After all my hard work the parents ate them.

The best way forward is to put a small flower pot base in the tank. Remove everything else they will want to lay on. Get an old ice scream box and add a few prick holes to allow for a water flow but not big enough to allow the fry to escape.

Once they rams have laid on the pot base put the base in the ice scream box and attach it to the side of the tank (washing line pegs?). The eggs will then hatch in a small area which means for the first few days you can feed them easily with liquifry 3 times a day. On the 2nd day introduce micro worm. After 4-5 days the fry need to be added to there own small tank where you can carry on feeding them microworm until there big enough for bbs. Once your at that stage its really important to keep water changing frequent but the water perams steady. Rams are easier to breed but harder to raise.

Good luck.

http://forum.bidka.org/showthread.php?t=16134

Cheers
Lee

[ShinShin]

I used to have rams spawn all the time with my discus. Discus will honor the territory of the rams for a day or two, then move in and eat the fry. It is fun to watch that 1st day or so. The rams are quite ferocious until the discus tire of them.

Mat

[Skip]

I used to have rams spawn all the time with my discus. Discus will honor the territory of the rams for a day or two, then move in and eat the fry. It is fun to watch that 1st day or so. The rams are quite ferocious until the discus tire of them.

Mat

:( awwww

[Love Discus]

They ate the eggs. I wasnt able to see if they turned white or not. They ate them less than 24 hours after I discovered them. owell.

[lhalliday]

They will probably lay in another 7 days. Remove the eggs next time and put them in a tub of some sort with pin prick holes in it (I use an old ice scream tub). Float the tub in the tank and use clips to attach it to the side ( I use washing line pegs?). First 2 days of hatching use liquid fry and from the 3rd day use micro worm and liquid fry. Feed this for 7 days then put the fish into there own tank as a small tub will start getting polluted (any bacteria with rams kills them - theres no room for error with ram fry). Keep the water changes small but often as they dont like too much flutiation.

After 7-10 days you start adding bbs. There so tiny in the 1st few days that feeding bbs leads to loss of some fry as its too large for the tiny fry.

Use a plant pot base as the only substrate to lay on as its easy to remove to the tub. The benefit of the tub is you can make sure that all the fry get the food where as in a tank its much more difficult.

Sorry - I replied to this link a few days ago and added a link to mine breeding but the admin team advised they would have to check the link 1st?) no worries - getting them to lay is a lot easier than discus but bringing up the fry is more challenging.

Good luck and hope this helps.
Cheers
Lee

[Love Discus]

Thanks for the advice, but Im not sure I would go that far for discus fry even. Ill just let them do their thing. What I originally wanted was a couple german blues to accent my discus tank, and not fight. I have just that right now so Im just going to be happy with what I've got. ...for now!

[Tito]

Thanks for the advice, but Im not sure I would go that far for discus fry even. Ill just let them do their thing. What I originally wanted was a couple german blues to accent my discus tank, and not fight. I have just that right now so Im just going to be happy with what I've got. ...for now!

reeding eggs layers is a whole different ball game and requires a lot of work for many species. The very reason why I don't even bother. But for those who are up to th challenge.....bat away!