Re: blue ram parenting behaviour?

["John McCrone" <j.mccrone@btinternet.com>]

[John McCrone]
Update: the pair seem bonded and happy again. I turned off lights and put a
mirror at the end of the tank to give another phantom couple for the male to
scare off. This morning female is being allowed to guard eggs and male is
fluttering round the mirror. I would say the rams seem more haphazard about
guarding the eggs. But perhaps they are more diligent once they turn into
wrigglers (fingers crossed).

I noticed some interesting behaviour before they settled down again. The
female, still in fright mode judging by her muted colours, was making
strange "wounded fish" darting runs away from the egg site as if to attract
the male in some way and change his behaviour. This alternated with hanging
around the male in submissive, belly and nose in the sand, posture.

[David Sanchez]
Good question John what they will do next is anybodys
guess. It all depends since they are the line bred
variety of rams it all depends on what that particuler
line does. Given that there still is perhaps some
advice I can offer. Personally I never use dithers or
target fish. To me thay are a problem because they
will eat the fry whan they become free swimming.

[John McCrone]
When I say dithers, I really mean killis I bought at the same time and are
sharing "quarantine". They will be moved out if wrigglers result. The water
from the LFS was weird - it tested at pH of 5 and GH of 20. My water is 6.5
and 1 - although the rams were still on their way to these parameters when
they laid.

I'm not a big fish breeder, having mostly community tanks. But my slight
experience suggests that some kind of dither fish does seem to keep males
and females from fighting each other - and bonding them in the first place.
The tank was previously occupied by a pair of agazzi for six months who grew
very fat but refused to breed. I propped the mirror up and got them
displaying and they showed much more interest than ever before. Now I have
chucked then in a community tank with other agazzis to see if a new pair
will form, or whether an end to the soft life gets them more interested in
maintaining their line.

[David Sanchez]
I have a fine strain of German Rams that have been
giving my allot of pleasure I am looking at a swarm of
fry right now with their parents and nice pink
bellies. Boy I love Rams sometimes we get caught up in
all the "new" dwarfs and man good old rams are just
awesome! Happy fish keeping

[John McCrone]
Rams have driven me to distraction in the past. It was a picture of a pretty
blue ram that got me wanting to go out an buy a fish tank in the first place
(about eight years ago). My early buys did not last long because of my own
ineptitude and because I bought the pale weaklings that were cheap. Then I
invested in some expensive German Rams and they died too. Eventually I
learnt enough to keep fish alive to the point where now the problem is that
they live too long (my tanks are jammed full and I can only "restock" with a
few pairs about once a year.). But by that time I had moved on to proper
apistos.

The rams I've got look good stock - not huge like some German rams on offer
but nice colour and natural looking behaviour. The pale runty rams tended to
flutter at the glass like guppies and just behaved generally dopey. This
pair have already shown more variety of courtship behaviours than any of the
apistos I've kept.

By the way, I also have a pair of keyhole cichlids sitting on a vast nest of
wrigglers in a community tank. The wrigglers will get eaten. But the parents
have given lie to the stories I've heard about keyholes being slack carers.
They are remarkably efficient at sentry duty.

Cheers
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from John McCrone





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