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Gang,

Yesterday I purchase what I thought (and think) is a pair of German Rams. Unfortunately, the girl in the store disturbed the piece in the tank before I could even finish telling her which ones I wanted, as I had my eyes layed on a pair that was formed by the dominant male and the female he tolerated and protected in the center of the tank. based on the disturbance she took flight and I lost sight of her for a second. I selected the one fish that I believed was her, although by now all fish had lost their coloration (if they had one before) and I could not see the pink belly anymore. I have to say that both Rams are still small. The male is for sure the one I pictured.

During the transport and acclimatication, the male kept his patial color, the female got all gray and black. Until lights on this morning I was sure I got the right fish. But about an hour in the light period, the "female" - which does not display a pink belly and just now is starting to color up in general - chases the male away, from almost wherever he goes.

Question: Is it known that female (she is smaller and less colorful) Rams chase male Rams away? The tank is a 20G Long QT.

Pictures of them can be seen in the Photo Booth and Planted Tank forums.

Thanks for any advice,

Ingo

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Proud Member of the New Jersey Aquatic Gardeners Club

Ingo,

You correctly identified the male and female rams! A couple of trivia items:
o Rams will always have the bar on their face. It is not a "stress bar" that apistos or discus have.
o The best way to sex rams IMO is the third dorsal spine. The spine will be elongated in the male to form a "rooster" comb.
o A pink, rounded belly in the female is a possible indication that she is gravid and ready to spawn.

So, it appears that you got the wrong female. She's probably po'd that she got jerked out of the tank without her boyfriend! Now, she has to put up with the geeky fish that you picked out for her!

You can wait for her to brighten up and appreciate your taste in men. However, I do recommend heading back to the LFS and get another male and three more females.

The larger group will be more entertaining as the males court the females and face off to defend their territories. It will also provide a better opportunity to get a breeding pair.

Ummm, tell your wife that it was my idea that you have to head back to the LFS on Mother's Day!



__________
"To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism; to steal from many is research."
researched from Steven Wright

Bob,

Thanks for the info. Although your statement implies that I have a male and a female Ram, I am more confused than ever.

So far, I have thought the larger is the male, the smaller is the male, both are males, and Untitled thinks both may be female.

Please have a look at These Entries in My Log showing new pictures and observations.

Thanks in advance,

Ingo

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Proud Member of the New Jersey Aquatic Gardeners Club

The "tag" game between two rams is not a good indicator of sex. Males will chase females and vice versa. A good indicator of behavior that indicates the sex of a ram is the sparring of fish face to face. Only males will undertake this posturing.

Untitled provided great pictures of a male and female ram. Of course, the pictures are of mature fish and your fish are not mature. I do think that you were correct when you initially identified the sex of the fish in your other post.

Problems in sexing rams do arise. I still think that you should add to the group. Hell, if you add 4 more fish, you might have a 6 pack of males! However, the odds would be very slight, about 16 in 1,000.





__________
"To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism; to steal from many is research."
researched from Steven Wright

about 16 in 1,000

, doesn't sound too bad.

Anyway, thanks for the additional info Bob. I think I am currently not in a position where I could add more fish, neither to the QT nor to the real tank(s) afterwards.

I guess my only option right now is to raise these two to my best abilities and wait what they will turn out to be. If I am lucky then I have one of each, if I am almost lucky then I have 2 girls and only have to get one more male.

Thanks again,

Ingo

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Proud Member of the New Jersey Aquatic Gardeners Club

I have 6 rams, 3 males and 3 females. Both of yours look like females to me. Of course one of my males looks very much like the females so it's possible one of yours is a male. They seem to try to disguise themselves! Must be a dominance thing.

"Constant vigilance!"
Mad-Eye Moody

Rams are pretty tough when young, but I think you got it right. As other posters have pointed out, your fish are not old enough to show much gender differentiation. But judging by a couple of signs, it looks to me like you have a male and a female. The first fish doesn't show any pink on the belly though it otherwise seems to be close to full mature coloration. Also, though it is hard to tell from a picture, it looks like the first ram has a small, somewhat pointed genital tube. Male rams have tubes like this, while females have thicker tubes with a crater-like tip. As for the second fish, it's hard to explain why, but it just looks female to me. Once it has grown and colored up, it will be much easier to tell.

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And when he gets to Heaven, to Saint Peter he will tell: "One more Marine reporting, Sir! I've served my time in Hell."

Color, dorsal spike, and behavior can all be misleading. In my search for a female I saw many males lacking dorsal spikes and color and 1 for certain female with a spike. She was gaurding eggs with her mate and had an obvious egg tube. I always try to look at their vent to compare their genitals. That never fails so long as the fish are big enough and you have a good eye. Males have a barely noticeable little bump that comes to a point and females have a much more obvious round tube. You can't really see that on either fish in your pics but I would guess you have at least 1 female. I definitely wouldn't guess them both male.

covered-in-bees, sirbooks, and sham

Thank you so much for the additional information.

I don't know if you happen to look in my 125G log once in a while, but I lost both Rams yesterday. They became pretty stationary the night before and didn't go after food anymore. When discussing the issue in my log it was pointed out to me that their sensitivity to environment changes and in general often leads to internal parasites taking over. Unfortunately, when I came home to start some form of treatment they both were dead already.

Thanks again,

Ingo

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Proud Member of the New Jersey Aquatic Gardeners Club

Boy, now I feel useless! Oh well, before I managed to get my 6, I lost 4 in one day. Luckily I've had these for about a year now, so hopefully they are safe. Hope I can try to identify some more for you at some point in the future!

"Constant vigilance!"
Mad-Eye Moody

covered-in-bees,

Not useless at all

All information will be stored somewhere in this little brain of mine, hopefully I can pull it back out before I make another Ram purchase

See, even your last entry was not useless as it showed me that I am not the only one who has problems with Rams.

Thanks again,

Ingo

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Proud Member of the New Jersey Aquatic Gardeners Club

Usually when I lose them within a few days it's from acclimating too quickly. Rams are about the only fish that I take an hour or so to acclimate. They do not handle changes in water parameters well at all. The ones I've lost from parasites took 4days to a week and they had other symptoms such as a swollen belly and clear to white strings of poop.

With fish like these, drip acclimation helps a lot. Instead of getting the newcomers used to just the water temperature, it will acclimatize them to the pH and other water parameters as well. Plus, it doesn't require any stopping in periodically to add more water or fiddle with a plastic bag- once the process has started, all that's needed is to make sure the tube is dripping at the right speed. Then just remove the fish from their bucket once you've decided you're done. This can be either after a set period of time, once the bucket fills to a certain level, or after the fish appear to be shaking off some of the stress. You can tailor the process by fish species and the amount that need to be acclimated. Drip acclimation is underused, in my opinion.

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And when he gets to Heaven, to Saint Peter he will tell: "One more Marine reporting, Sir! I've served my time in Hell."

sham and sirbooks,

Thanks for the additional information. I actually acclimated the fish over a period of 2 hours, all of my fish get at least 1 hour, even when just moving them between tanks (usually QT to main tank).

I think I have to read more about drip acclimating as I somehow cannot picture how you siphon water (drops) out of your tank while the bag is floating in it. If you have to have the fish in a bucket below the tank level, then how do you maintain temperature? The drops for sure would be colder than the tank itself based on cooling in tube and during the time it takes the drop to form and fall in the bucket. Obviously it is being done all the time, I just don't understand it yet.

Thanks again,

Ingo

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Proud Member of the New Jersey Aquatic Gardeners Club

The bag actually isn't kept in the bucket, the fish are released. The way I've been doing drip acclimation is as follows:

Gather all materials necessary- bag with fish, five gallon bucket, scissors, and a piece of airline tubing long enough to go from the fish tank to the bucket.

Making sure that the bucket is rinsed beforehand, cut the bag and release the fish into the bucket. If you do not feel you will have enough water, you can request extra tank water at the store, or add a bit of water from your own tank. This forcefully speeds up acclimation though, to the detriment of more delicate fish.

Place one end of the tubing in the aquarium water, and prop up the glass hood on top of it. This serves to hold the tube in place, but does not overly restrict water flow.

Tie a loose knot near the other end of the tubing. I normally do what I *think* is a half square knot- forming a small loop with the tube, then inserting the end through the loop and pulling to tighten. In a moment, you will probably need to adjust the knot.

Grab hold of the tube's end and suck on it for about a second (more if using a long piece of tubing, less if a short piece) and drop the end into the bucket quickly. Water will start pouring through, and you will likely need to tighten or loosen the knot. The ideal rate of water flow depends on how many fish are in the bucket and what kind they are- rates vary from several drops per second to one drop every five seconds. Again, you can tailor the speed of acclimation to your needs.

When finished, remove the fish with a net or whatever other means you would prefer. Discard the bucket water, top off the aquarium as needed, and wipe off both ends of airline tubing. You're good to go!

Some folks float their bag in the aquarium prior to dripping, others do not.

Here is a link which provides more info:
www.saltwaterfish.com/site_11_03/acclimation.php

Direct link doesn't seem to be working.

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And when he gets to Heaven, to Saint Peter he will tell: "One more Marine reporting, Sir! I've served my time in Hell."

http:\\www.saltwaterfish.com/site_11_03/acclimation.php

Thanks sirbooks,

Helpful as usual

I haven't yet read your link, and maybe I should before raising a question I had earlier again, but I will do so anyway .

What about the temperature in the bucket? My basement can fall to about 60 (in strong winter days maybe even less) and I would assume the temp in the bucket is not much warmer. Wouldn't that create a major shock when scooping out the fish and adding them into the tank, with up to 20 degrees warmer water?

Ingo

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Proud Member of the New Jersey Aquatic Gardeners Club

That creates a problem. Normally the fact that the bag (after floating) and the drip water had been heated keeps the bucket temp up enough so that it doesn't shock the fish. I'm not sure how a cooler ambient temperature affects the bucket water, and I'm not sure how to prevent a big drop. The only thing I can think of is a tiny heater, but that could cook the fish. Perhaps a small reptile heat mat? I'm not sure how it would work through plastic and how it would affect a small water volume. It'd be nice to run a test on that, maybe I can sneak it in at work.

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And when he gets to Heaven, to Saint Peter he will tell: "One more Marine reporting, Sir! I've served my time in Hell."

sirbooks,

Yeah, I am sure it would be interesting to get some real numbers behind this speculation.

Keep us posted with any results you may get.

Thanks,

ingo

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Proud Member of the New Jersey Aquatic Gardeners Club

Ingo,

There is less effect from the ambient temperature of the surrounding air than the heat transference from the bucket to the basement floor. I am making the assumption that the floor is concrete and is not covered with carpet as this is near a fish tank.

Place a board beneath the bucket when using the drip method of acclimating. It is my personal opinion that the characteristics of the water are much more important than water temperature when acclimating fish. That is, a 5 degree temperature change is much less importatnt that a -1 pH change or a 400 ms (micro siemens) change in hardness.

Out of curiosity, I tested the lfs bag water from a number of fish purchases for pH using my test kit and for hardness using a meter. Generally, the bag water was with 0.2 pH of my tank pH but hardness in the bags ranged from 1600 to 2200 ms. My base water is 300 ms!

I now take three to five hours using a drip system when I acclimate "sensitive" fish. Any discus, cardinal tetra, apisto or ram are "sensitive" fish.

In my opinion, rams are the canaries for discus tank conditions. Canaries were used in mines to detect noxious gas. When the canary passed out or died, then it was time to get out of the mine or improve ventilation. Rams perform the same function in my discus tank... if they look or act poorly, it's tim,e to up the maintenance level.



__________
"To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism; to steal from many is research."
researched from Steven Wright

Thanks for the info Bob,

I will keep that in mind when (if) I get my next set of Rams. I will have to make sure I purchase them around noon so I can add them to the tank maybe at 8PM .

I know about canaries and mines, but I think Rams are too expensive for that you. It is like hiring a doctor to do some sweeping .

Thanks again,

Ingo

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Proud Member of the New Jersey Aquatic Gardeners Club