# German Blue Rams



## FazTeAoMar

Hello.

Just thought to share my rams with you, along with their babies. This couple has spawned five times since I have them. In the last two spawns, almost 100% of the eggs hatched. Unfortunatelly, fry with 8 days old from the first three spawns were eaten by the parents because the female was ready for another spawn. So, I never had fry with more than 8 days old.

This weekend, another spawn took place in my 180L tank. It is the fifth spawn. Eggs hatched and, again, almost 100% of them were fertile. Today is the fourth day of the fry and, to prevent anther infanticide from the parents, I went into the pharmacy and buyed a syringe, large enough in the opening for the fry to be sucked. It worked! I took all the fry from the parents nest and put them in a nursery with plenty of moss. By tomorrow, all the fry will be free swiming and the days that will follow, it will be time for me to feed them microworms and liquid food.

Here´s some pics:




























This was in the 65L tank where the pair had three spawns. This batch of fry were killed by parents after two days.



















Here are the pics taken today. Fry already in the nursery, still with the yolk sack attached.

Here´s a video:

:arrow: *Vídeo* - "  Fry and Dad"

*To download the video:*
( click the link ---> click where it says " free" in the giant board ----> wait until the countdown ends ----> insert the colourful code and click " Start download" )










The Male










The Female

Regards,
André


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## Pseud

Those photos are stunning. Beautiful fish. They really have excellent coloring. Good job and thanks for sharing!


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## Raul-7

Beautiful male you have there! Finnage is amazing!


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## JerseyScape

Definitely nice coloring on the rams.


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## JanS

Congratulations!

Beautiful photos.


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## raven_wilde

Yes, absolutely beautiful rams!

What kind of lighting do you have in your tank? Their coloration shows so well.


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## BryceM

Very nice photography. I've tried many times to get a decent shot of my ram but I need a real camera to do it right.


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## FazTeAoMar

raven_wilde said:


> Yes, absolutely beautiful rams!
> 
> What kind of lighting do you have in your tank? Their coloration shows so well.


Hello.

The rams are in my 180L ADA tank with 4 X 55W PL: 2 X 10000K + 1 X 4000K + 1 X 6000K.

Thanks for the complimments. Baby rams are now in the nursery so I´ll let you know in a week how they are doing ( fingerscrossed for the fry to grow healty).

Regards,
André


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## houseofcards

What kind of diet are you planning on giving the fry?


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## FazTeAoMar

Hello.

I´m giving them liquid food from JBL with artemia. In a couple of days I intend to start a diet with microworms and continue the liquid food. I have tried to give them microworms already but they seem to be a bit bigger for their tiny mouth right now.


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## houseofcards

Thanks,

I had a similiar situation with my bolivian rams in my tank. They spawned twice so far. The first time about 100 fry did hatch and the babies were well protected by the mother, but my school of cardinals kept picking them off. I did remove some to a smaller tank, but non survived more than one week. I was feeding Hikairi Fry Food.


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## mshaughnessy

those are nice fish. How hard is your water and what is the pH? I had a pair of rams in a 55 gal planted tank just die. Are they very sensitive? Thanks


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## houseofcards

The bolivians are quite hardy. My water parameters are:

kh 3
ph 6.2 to 6.4


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## FazTeAoMar

Rams are as sensitive as other fish. 

The first thing to do is to get good individuals with strong defenses and good genes. That is the most difficult part. Here in Portugal we have all kinds of rams that come from different breeders, though I only trust in one breeder that is German wich is where my pair came from. 

Second thing to do is to feed the fishes very well. At least 2 times/day so they can grow strong, with good colours and confident behaviour. My rams let me touch them and are fed in my hand. The result is shown in the pictures. 

Right now i´m having another batch of fry wich are in their third day. In 2/3 days, they will be free swimming.

I started to breed rams in a 65L tank with:

pH = 6
gH = 7
Temp = 26ºC

Since I have them in my 180L tank, my water parameters are:

pH = 7
gH = 14
Temp = 25ºC

This is my second spawn in this tank and the eggs are almost 100% sucessfully fertilized. Pictures of the fry coming soon.

Regards


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## HydroBot

Great work! Beautiful photos, I would love too see an update.


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## FazTeAoMar

Hello.

Fry have 20 days old. Here are some pics taken yesterday:




























Don´t have a macro lens so its hard to take pics of something that small.

André


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## Raul-7

While we are on the topic of eggs and Rams, just last night this happened.










Sorry for the quality, the male won't stop moving!


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## jower

Had to post a pic of my rams too... 

sorry for pic quality...


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## fredyk

I had a fabulous pair that was spawning a couple years ago. The tank had gone to green water, and I was leaving for vacation so no hope for pampering the fry. And I got a new cannister filter to fix all the water problems. Anyway, the parents and fry were in the back, and so I said to the mother, "come here and show me the fry". So what do you think happened? The mother and father brought the frys out of the green background into the foreground for a sneak preview. Unfortunately, the fry didn't grow out in the new setup.

Mark


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## ChrisGray

those are by far the best looking rams i have ever seen


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## banderbe

I did not think rams would breed in water that hard!


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## JanS

banderbe said:


> I did not think rams would breed in water that hard!


There are some that apparently have been acclimated enough over the generations enough to breed even better in hard(ish) water. There's a guy on Aqua Bid who sells some beauties and he said his actually spawn much more frequently in his unaltered harder water, than if he tries to soften it.

I'm pretty sure you wouldn't have much success in harder water if they were wild.


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## banderbe

How can I get a hi-res photo of that up close shot of your amazing looking male?

I would like a 1280 x 1024 for my computer desktop wallpaper!


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## DJKronik57

Definitely agree, best looking I've ever seen.

I bought 1 male ram from a local fish store and then felt bad for the poor guy since he was alone and I had read how easy they were to breed, so I bought 2 females and 1 male. Oddly, the 3 new rams don't look like the original (which looks more like the ones in these posts, or like John N.'s:










Instead, they have a more elongated body and have almost no yellow coloration on their bodies at all. They were shipped from the Czech Republic according to the fish store, so I would guess they would be closer to a true German Blue Ram. Here's one of the new ones, shortly after they spawned. This is the female over the eggs (sorry for the bad picture quality, it was in a very awkward spot in the tank to photograph):










This is a better picture, but not mine:

http://www.angelfire.com/tx/CichlidPimp/images/coolfish3.jpg

Could the difference in shape and yellow coloration of the first picture be attributed to interbeeding with Gold Rams?


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## Raul-7

I believe the first Ram you have is a balloon Ram.


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## DJKronik57

Ah ha! That makes much more sense. I had heard of Balloon Rams but never been able to get a picture of what they looked like. It's odd though because you type in "German Blue Ram" in Google Image Search and almost all of the results look like a mix between a Balloon Ram and the narrow body Blue Rams.

Will the Balloon Ram interbreed with my Blue Ram? It's hard to tell if they've formed a pair. There's no chasing going on, but they don't necessarily stick together either.

I've attached a picture of the first ram (suspected Balloon Ram) although he wouldn't stop moving, so it is quite blurry.


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## banderbe

> Will the Balloon Ram interbreed with my Blue Ram


They are still they same species so technically it is possible, though I wonder if the misshapen body of the balloon ram would dissuade a would-be partner from rollin' in the aquatic hay.


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## FazTeAoMar

Hi guys.

Sorry for the delay, I have been without computer for awhile.

Raul-7 good luck for your rams. That male looks very healthy.

jower very nice! It is a spectacular view seeing parents and fry togehter isn´t it? Your female looks a bit thin. Yous should feed her more often. Protein is the secret. 

My baby rams are now with 1 month old. They doubled their size with microworms and are now able to eat cyclopeeze wich is a very nutritive food. They still eat microworms and liquid food from JBL. As soon as I can I´ll take some pics, probably still during this week. 

Regards,
André


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## FazTeAoMar

As promissed, some pics of baby rams. They have 32 days.




























They are very slow growers.


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## John N.

That's Awesome! Good Luck with the babies! 

Those German Blue rams such as the photo DJ posted are expressing a recessive gene that gives them that round shape, hence balloon rams.

-John N.


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## Sloory

G'day FazTeAoMar,

wow they are some flamin awsome looking blue rams!
I've just picked my first two myself and i'm really hoping that they're a male and female. They're quite young still so i don't know what sex they are.

They're in a holding tank at the moment but they will soon hav their own 50 litre tank planted with riccia, tonina, micranthemum micranthemoides, driftwood, and a couple of rocks.

Do you have any advise for a first time german blue ram keeper??

Thanks Darren.

P.S. could you possibly give us a full shot of their 180liter tank? I'd love to see it!


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## Burks

Those are some of the best pictures of GBR's I've seen. 

Everything still going good with them? 

My LFS won't have any in stock until the Fall due to shipping problems (guess they don't ship well at a few months). What do you do with the babies when they are grown? Trade them in or sell them off? I'd like to have a breeding pair, that'd be pretty cool.


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## FazTeAoMar

Hi there.

I have forgotten to update this thread. Sorry! My baby rams are growing nicely. They have reached the stage of juveniles. They already express some colours and some territorial behaviour with their brothers.

Here are some pics as well some google videos ( sorry for the quality):

*Day 68*





































:arrow: *Videos:*

Since this pics, some of them already acquired red colour in their eyes and caudal fins and some stell blue in their heads.

Answering the questions:

Sloory hello mate! My advise would be:

- keep the tank simple. Put some plants that don´t need to much care in trimming but still provide enough shadow/shelter for the parents/fry;

- feed your newly acquired rams all sorts of protein rich food. This is the stage where you need to make them grow strong and healthy so don´t hold back on food. Blood worms, JBL granum, artemia, grindal worms, etc;

- have plenty of wood/rocks to mark the territory and turn it useful to breeding;

- when they reach adult stage, they will become more connected ( if they really are male and female) and soon you will se the female cleaning an area in your tank. The male will help too. When this happens, she will be very fat ( full of eggs) and thats when you need to do some water change ( around 10 llitre) to promote spawning.

- When you have fry, I will gladly give you some more hints, altough this journal arealdy contains some about it. 

What I think its important is the nature of the fish. If they have good genes, if they are healthy in the LFS and if they come from germany, I think you have good chances of reproducing them. I say " come from Germany" because, I had some blue rams from Asia before this ones and were by far less natural than this ones. Asian rams are bigger, fatter, less active, have their colours more mixed and more alive, even in the LFS. The ones I purchased died 1 week later. That´s when I decided to give another oportunity to this fish and buyed them in my LFS, this time, the source would be german. It has been joy since than.

Burks this pics have been taken last week. When they are big enough, I will sell, give others to some friends and guard a pair or too to myself. If you were from Portugal, I would gladly sell some to you.

Here goes a final pic of my 180L where the pair spawned them. Juveniles are in a 65L planted tank, alone:










Regards,
André


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## Sloory

Here goes a final pic of my 180L where the pair spawned them.
[IMG said:


> http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v637/Aquarium_Naturae/180L/PICT0015edit.jpg[/IMG]
> 
> Regards,
> André


And why wouldn't they have!? that tank is flamin awesome!!

Thanks for the advise there Faz, i really appretiate it alot!
Keep us updated sooner cause this is the best fish thread i read in along time!

Keep up the good work bud


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## DJKronik57

Sorry to dig up an old post, but my first fry just hatched! They came from nowhere in odd circumstances, but to make a long story short, the male died shortly before the fry appeared and so I really want to try to get some to survive.

There must be 60-80 of them now. How long does the yolk sac last? My tank is well established with plenty of moss and tiny creatures (infusoria). Will this be enough to keep them fed till they eat larger food? I only have Hikari First Bites and want to hold off till I know they can eat it since it will pollute the water otherwise (it is a fine powder). I have a small culture of daphnia, but I'm sure these are too big. What can I do? Thanks!


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## FazTeAoMar

Hi folks!

Just wanted to share some pics of my Rams and their fry. This pair was born here in May of 2006, as you can see from last posts. From that batch, I have kept this pair to continue breeding. Last week, it was their turn to become parents of a large batch of fry.

Here are some pics of the fry and the parents, guarding them:

Male and fry









Female Yawning









Male in guarding position 









These pics were taken three days ago. Today, the fry are already free swiming and I have separated half of the fry to the raising tank. The other half I left with the parents. I would like to see the natural behaviour of fry keeping by their parents. As soon as I can, I will post some updated pics of both fry.

Here are some more pics of the parents, two days before the egg laying:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v637/Aquarium_Naturae/112L/PICT0010E.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v637/Aquarium_Naturae/112L/PICT0013E.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v637/Aquarium_Naturae/112L/PICT0036E.jpg

Best regards,
André


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## Jdinh04

Nice pics Andre, so are these the same pair? It looks like they've gain a lot more color. My pair just laid eggs a couple days ago, although they ate all of it up by now. Once I get rid of the other female, the pair will be alone to themselves and hopefully i'll get a batch of fry going.


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## Cassie

wow, beautiful fish, adorable babies!


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## deepdiver

Wow! Beautiful rams. I'm working on spawning mine. I have a definite male, almost 100% sure a female, and I just bought 2 today with red bellies so I think they're females. The male and older ?female bonded at first, but then the male just started chasing the femal around so I separated them. Is that normal? Thanks for the great pictures!


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## FazTeAoMar

Hello again.



Jdinh04 said:


> Nice pics Andre, so are these the same pair? It looks like they've gain a lot more color. My pair just laid eggs a couple days ago, although they ate all of it up by now. Once I get rid of the other female, the pair will be alone to themselves and hopefully i'll get a batch of fry going.


Hi jdinh. No, they are not the same pair. This pair belongs to the batch of fry I have raised.

Here´s the pic of the pair when they were juvies ( well, two of them are  ):










The pair has now 8 months. They have reached adulthood at 6 months of age. That´s when they become sexual active. Two months later, they presented me with fry, wich you can see from the pics above.



deepdiver said:


> The male and older ?female bonded at first, but then the male just started chasing the femal around so I separated them. Is that normal? Thanks for the great pictures!


Yes, it is normal. It means that the male is ready to spawn but the female isn´t. If she stops running and both start hanging out, plus, if she is fat, this means that she will be ready to breed soon. Good food and most important of all, good quality rams, are the key to captive breeding.

André


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## Jdinh04

Andre, don't you think its sort of bad to inbreed the pair from the same spawn? Like, wouldn't you rather spawn the male with a female from a different spawn?


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## FazTeAoMar

Hello John.



Jdinh04 said:


> Andre, don't you think its sort of bad to inbreed the pair from the same spawn? Like, wouldn't you rather spawn the male with a female from a different spawn?


Yes, it should not be done if we would like to introduce new genes and " upgrade" ( so to speak") the genetic variability but, by doing so, I am afraid I would be introducing genes that would alter the form/colour of my Rams. For example: from inbreeding the first pair ( yes, they were brothers too), I have noticed that this current pair received the same characteristics of their parents suchs as nice finage, good colour, same boddy form, etc. In my LFS, they stopped to have the same kind of Rams. They are now importing a Ram with a large body, in form of balloon ( but not as marked as Asian balloon Rams) wich I definitely don´t like and by breeding one of my fish with that round Ram from the LFS, I would risk to have a new generation of round/balloon rams.

Of course that, if I could find another Ram just like mine ( wich, in my opinion, is the one that most resembles Wild Rams and the most beautiful variety) I would try to introduce a whole new genetic pool by breeding them with a non-relative. Unfortunately, that is not possible so I will continue to raise the fry from this particular pair and will not interbreed them as long as I have this reprodutive pair or whenever I can find another male/female that belongs to the German Blue Ram variety. 

André


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## BryceM

It's a pretty common practice to breed fish within the same line for several generations. The ususal "inbreeding" issues with regards to recessive traits are less of an issue in fish than in humans or other mammals.


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## Dabolox

I have no words... wonderful, stunning photos...


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## ~Mike~

Exactly how hardy are the German Blue Rams?


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## argblarg

Wow there are some amazing Rams in here. I have one left out of three and he is really boring and barely has any blue on his sides. Makes me want more!


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## Burks

~Mike~ said:


> Exactly how hardy are the German Blue Rams?


Ones directly from Asia don't do well in aquariums in the US. May have something to do with the water?

US bred ones are much hardier. Still sensitive but not nearly as much as the Asian bred ones.


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## dawntwister

FazTeAoMar said:


> Hello.
> 
> Just thought to share my rams with you, along with their babies. This couple has spawned five times since I have them. In the last two spawns, almost 100% of the eggs hatched. Unfortunatelly, fry with 8 days old from the first three spawns were eaten by the parents because the female was ready for another spawn. So, I never had fry with more than 8 days old.
> 
> This weekend, another spawn took place in my 180L tank. It is the fifth spawn. Eggs hatched and, again, almost 100% of them were fertile. Today is the fourth day of the fry and, to prevent anther infanticide from the parents, I went into the pharmacy and buyed a syringe, large enough in the opening for the fry to be sucked. It worked! I took all the fry from the parents nest and put them in a nursery with plenty of moss. By tomorrow, all the fry will be free swiming and the days that will follow, it will be time for me to feed them microworms and liquid food.
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> Here are the pics taken today. Fry already in the nursery, still with the yolk sack attached.
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> Here´s a video:
> 
> :arrow: *Vídeo* - "  Fry and Dad"
> 
> *To download the video:*
> ( click the link ---> click where it says " free" in the giant board ----> wait until the countdown ends ----> insert the colourful code and click " Start download" )
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> Regards,
> André


Gorgeous ram. Did you do anything to soften the water?


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## jARDINI

rams are my favorite. i have 2 pairs of bolivian rams and they spawned 3 times so far. i feed the fry Hikari First Bites after they consume there yolk sac. i remove the eggs rite after they are fertilized (yoyo loaches love ram eggs) and put them in seperate tank. i then sold them to a local fish store.


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## Terra Incognita

I love rams. I've been breeding my pair for a while now. 

Spawning









Male (sorry about glare, but his irridescense is like this in person all the time!)









Female... unfortunately very camera shy


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## Legacy2005

wow beautiful fish. the colors are amazing.


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## dawntwister

FazTeAoMar said:


> Hi folks!
> 
> Just wanted to share some pics of my Rams and their fry. This pair was born here in May of 2006, as you can see from last posts. From that batch, I have kept this pair to continue breeding. Last week, it was their turn to become parents of a large batch of fry.
> 
> Here are some pics of the fry and the parents, guarding them:
> 
> Male and fry
> 
> 
> 
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> Female Yawning
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> Male in guarding position
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> 
> These pics were taken three days ago. Today, the fry are already free swiming and I have separated half of the fry to the raising tank. The other half I left with the parents. I would like to see the natural behaviour of fry keeping by their parents. As soon as I can, I will post some updated pics of both fry.
> 
> Here are some more pics of the parents, two days before the egg laying:
> 
> http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v637/Aquarium_Naturae/112L/PICT0010E.jpg
> http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v637/Aquarium_Naturae/112L/PICT0013E.jpg
> http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v637/Aquarium_Naturae/112L/PICT0036E.jpg
> 
> Best regards,
> André


Well, what happened to the fry that you left with the parents? Also what size tank do you have the parents in? What size tank did you put the fry in?


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## FazTeAoMar

Hello.

Thank you for the kind comments.

Dawntwister, I did not do anything to soften the water. My rams bread in my regular tap water, wih pH of 7, kH of 6 and gH of 6.



> Well, what happened to the fry that you left with the parents? Also what size tank do you have the parents in? What size tank did you put the fry in?


All the fry that I left with the parents were eaten by them. In the last pics, tank size is a 30g. The fry stayed in the same tank as the parents, in a nursery. When they are big enough, I change them to a 10g.


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## dawntwister

FazTeAoMar said:


> Hello.
> 
> Thank you for the kind comments.
> 
> Dawntwister, I did not do anything to soften the water. My rams bread in my regular tap water, wih pH of 7, kH of 6 and gH of 6.
> 
> All the fry that I left with the parents were eaten by them. In the last pics, tank size is a 30g. The fry stayed in the same tank as the parents, in a nursery. When they are big enough, I change them to a 10g.


Tis a shame the parents ate the fry. I thought in a 30 gallon tank, well planted, the parents would leave the fry alone.


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## Legacy2005

man i cant get over how cool these look. 1/2 tempted to hit the local LFS and pick up some along with a tank for them..lol What size tank would you recommend for a breeding pair.


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## CCRDIVER

really nice report ive been havimg the same problums with my rams 8 days or so and gone!


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## dawntwister

At utube Calozor has a video of his rams with the fry in 30G tank. He said the rams ate the fry when they were unexpierenced parents.


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## MNellis3023

these are slowly becoming my favorite fs fish. The personalities of these fish are unique. Im actually in the process of getting a bigger tank, either 150g or 250g and Im leaning twards doing a GBR tank(orinoco river basin).


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