Blue Rams In A Community

[goin_all_out]

i have a community tank at the moment. 10 cardinal tetras and 6 swordtails in a 20 gal. planted tank. a friend from wrok offered my 60 dollars in credit for the lfs from wen he had to give up the fish he had. i was considering giving the store my swordtails and getting a pair of rams. i read the stickies and the fish index but id like to hear some real life experiences. this is as close as i can get to cichlids right now till i move and get a bigger tank next year.

 

[starrynightxxi]

if you get more than one, be sure it's a pair. Two males will try to kill each other, I'm not sure on two females. Don't get more than two, either because if you have a pair they will gang up and kill the odd man out.

As community fish they should be fine. They can be sensitive about water quality, especially if they are from mass-produced lines (a private breeder would be best but isn't always realistic), but the same goes for cardinals, so i imagine if you're cardinals are okay, your rams will be as well.

I've had my blues with rummynose tetras, cories, kuhli loaches, scarlet badis, swordtails, endlers, and shrimp and the only fish they ever didn't get along with was the male swordtail. OCCASIONALLY they would get after other fish, but never very seriously. they mostly just chased each other and only became especially territorial when they had eggs.

 

[goin_all_out]

well the tetras are old, well 6 of them, i recently bought 4 little babies about half the size of my 5 month old ones. am i going to have any issues with the rams pestering the smaller newer tetras?

 

[starrynightxxi]

well, I can't say no for sure, but my experience with these fish and others is that they may give a little chase, but they probably won't have any intentions of killing. A pair should be far more interested in bothering one another than the other fish. I kept my rams with the scarlet badis which is a small (3/4 inch), slow fish that is somewhat similar in shape and habits to the rams and while they would occasionally push the badis around, it was never very much, and there was never any harm done. The badis did more harm to one another than the rams ever did to either of them

My guess would be that your tetras will be fine. They will be quicker than your rams for one thing, and if your tank is well planted they should be able to elude them pretty easily despite (or rather, because of) being small.

Just keep in mind that this is subject to my own experience which undoubtedly will be different from yours. Keep an eye on your fish because they do have personalities and you may or may not get a fish that is tolerant of others. semi-aggressive fish are always a crapshoot when added to communities because sometimes you get very laid back individuals, and sometimes you don't. My overall assumption, though, is that you shouldn't have any problems.



also, not sure if you meant it this way, but 5 months isn't old for tetras. the life expectancy of well cared for neons is supposedly ten years, and i imagine cardinals would be much the same

 

[goin_all_out]

lol well they are the second oldest fish in my tank. the oldest being one of the female swordtails i have. i may keep 2 females and a male for verieties sake.

 

[Flumpus]

I have a 3ft tank with bolivian and blue rams (as well as some tetras and other stuff). The blue rams, well, one of them at least, will chase all the other rams, including the much bigger bolivians. He never really does any damage, and has never chased anything smaller than him (he's the smallest of the four rams). It worried me a bit at first, but it's been probably four months now, and everything is fine. Some may say I'm pushing it with that many rams in that size tank, but like I said, I've seen nothing to suggest that any damage is being done, and there are plenty of hiding places in all the wood, caves, and plants. So I say go for it, from my experiences the blue rams won't bother the tetras at all, mostly just bother each other, which is fun to watch.

 

[thefirethief]

Ive got 4 rams in a 35Gal with a shoal flame tetras, 2 yo yo loaches and an angel (angel.... not the best choice, Im aware ).

Ive not had any problems with them at all apart from the very occassional flare up between two of them. The 4 generally kick about the same areas together. The yo yo's seem to be good dither fish as they seem to be a right good pair of face lickers and thats always enough to distract any quarreling fish.

 

[Kevstir]

Iv got 3 in my Juwel vision 180 (3ft, 40 Uk Gallons) 2 females and 1 male .

They have there moments with each other , they will only chase away other fish from food and even at that its nothing to worry about.

I got 2 females at first, they used to go for days where they would swim fine with each other then every nown again they would flair up and have a wee fight , after adding the male i thought he would pair up up and maybe bully the remaining female but that's not been the case , the male does tend to hang out with one female more than the other but i wouldn't say they have paired up.

They all have there little moments with each other but no harm is done ..

 

[fishwatcher]

There should be no problem. My rams have never hurt a fly even when breeding. they'll chase them away a bit, but never hurt them. You should be fine with them.