Electric blue ram sexing weird behaviour

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Courtney Brown

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As title says i have two electric blue rams one that i have had about 5 months that had another one with it when i bought it but that died.

I went and bought another baby electric blue ram for company but he chased it for a day then they got on well.. now hes back to chasing it everywhere help will he kill it ?
 
Hi and welcome to the forum :)

can you post a picture of the 2 fish, and maybe a short 20 second video of them chasing?
 
I have tried to post a picture but it keeps saying file is too large any tips lol
 
If you set the camera resolution to 2MB the images will be smaller and should fit.

If you get a similar problem with video, upload it to Youtube and post the link on here. We can go to Youtube to view it. :)
 
The top fish i was told is a female and bottom is an older male again what ive been told. The male keeps chasing female away from a hollow log(decoration cave log) also male keeps eating of log. The way the bigger ram keeps chasing is like a speed burst. The little one can be swimming just in front then the big one swims fast and chases little one but then maybe five or ten minutes later they could be right next to each other inside the log. I will try upload a video when i can as im at work at the moment.

Thanks
Courtney brown
 

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I can't tell what sex the top fish is but if it is a male and female, the male is simply showing off and chasing the new fish away from his territory (the log).

If they are male and female, the male should accept the female in a few days to a week. However, each fish has their own preferences when it comes to a partner and the male might not accept the other fish.

As a general rule, rams are pretty peaceful and don't go out of their way to kill each other. But you should monitor them over a few weeks and see how they go. If they continue to argue (the big one keeps chasing the small one) for more than a week I would take the small one back and exchange it for another fish.
 
Ok thank you so much just wasn't sure why there ok one minute then hes chasing her the next thank you.
 
I cannot tell anything from the photos; a video would allow us to observe their interaction, and this is usually the best way to tell gender, in young rams anyway, aside from actual spawning behaviour.

From your description, the ram doing the chasing is probably male. The other could be male or female, but if the male tolerates its presence close as you describe, then the smaller is likely female. However, this is not the end of the issue.

Males and females must select each other, and bond. This may occur when you place a male and female together, but often it does not. It is better to select an obvious male and female from the tank of fish in the store. Some people buy a group of rams and let a pair form, but then you have to do something with the others. Unless the group is in a very large tank, they will not get along permanently.

A pair that do not bond can spawn, perhaps several times, before the male (usually) decides he has had enough and kills the female. If they bond, they are more likely to live together peacefully, but this is not an absolute. But it does have a better chance of working long-term.

As Colin said, carefully observe their interactions. If the male seems unwilling to tolerate the second fish at all, separate them permanently. If there is acceptance, which seems to be the case here, you may luck out. Or you may not, later; I had two Bolivian Rams that spawned four times before the male turned on the female and it was over.
 
Thought I would update you all the baby was actually a male and has now picked a female of his own in my and that pair are in my 160l tank the older male ram is in a 100l with a female but have not paired (no aggression)
 

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