Bolivian Ram Question

[--Mike--]

Hi all,

I recently re-engaged with the hobby and set up a 55 gallon tank. However I've had some problems:

• I set the tank up using filter media from an existing tank. Added a bottle of API Quickstart for good measure.
• Tank contains large drift wood, plants, rocks, sand on most of the bottom, plant friendly gravel in the corners
• Fluval 306 with a spray bar. I wouldn't consider it a fast current tank.
• After 4/5 days I got 6 corydoras catfish - no problems
• 1 week later I got 2 bolivian rams, I believe both were males. First day everything seemed good. Rams followed each other, but no real aggression seen. The next night I found one of the Rams dead. It didn't seem beat up, no torn fins. Other ram was fine.
  • I had a concern at this point that I did not decorate the tank sufficiently to create territories. I added a couple of those cichlid cave decorations from Petsmart. The Ram has never used them.
• 2 weeks later I got another 6 corys and an albino bristlenose pleco. Corys adapted fine. Pleco seemed ok. maybe a little thin, would often hang out on the front of the tank. Ram would shim near him but never saw an attack. 2 days later the pleco was dead under a piece of wood.
  • At the same time I added some larger Anubias plants from my other tank.
• The Ram and the 12 corys have been fine for the last two weeks.
• I've done water quality checks almost daily through the process, 15-20% water changes each week after fish were added. No ammonia (0ppm) or nitrite (0ppm) or nitrate issues (close to 0 ppm). Water is 7.6 PH and on the harder side around 10 degrees GH. Water comes from a well, I have a 120 gallon which has been up for years and never had an issue.
• When I add fish I float the bags, adding some tank water every 10 minutes. After 30 minutes I pour the bags through a net into a bucket and add the fish to the tank. Store water never enters the tank.
• The rams, pleco and second batch of corys are all from the same store, different tanks.

Here are my questions:

• Has anyone seen this type of aggression from a Bolivian Ram?
• Could the initial lack of features and the later addition of features (plants) cause a territorial response?
• Any other ideas?

I would like to get another pleco but I'm reluctant to add another if the Ram is the cause.

 

[Byron]

Has anyone seen this type of aggression from a Bolivian Ram?

Yes, this is actually common. Even in the larger tanks--I had my male Bolivian in a 5-foot 115g heavily planted tank, and he turned on the female and killed her one night, even after they had spawned four times; Corydoras ate the eggs every time, but that had nothing to do with the rams' interactions, and in hindsight their odd interactive behaviours was (or should have been) a sign of trouble had I then known all this.. A male and female must select each other from the group, and usually this will be successful--though there are no guarantees. Putting any two rams together, whether a male/female or two males, is not likely to pan out unless you are very lucky. Even two females might not tolerate one another, but I have never tried this pairing. If you observe the rams in the store tank you can usually spot a likely pairing...a male (obvious by his constant pushing and bunting of other males) that allows a female to remain close to him is likely to be willing to accept her.

Could the initial lack of features and the later addition of features (plants) cause a territorial response?

No, not actually. The fish care nothing about the aquascape, if there is an "invader" ram in the water, the fish know it and an aggressive male (or female, usually the male though) will hound it down. Fish release phermones read by other fish of that species, and they are strong chemical signals. These usually have more impact with the fish than even sight.

The pleco I cannot comment on, I would not have thought a Bolivian Ram to get so worked up as to kill a pleco, but then anything is possible.

 

[Gypsum]

I've never heard of a Bolivian ram attacking any Loricariidae, but like Byron says, anything is possible. Mine lived with my albino bristlenose pleco for a while, and she's longfin as well. He never bothered her. I only shifted the ram into a different tank because I put a powerhead into his original tank, and he didn't appreciate that. They can't handle flow. Now he lives with corys, cherry barbs, a clown pleco, and Microdevario kubotai. He occasionally chases the male barbs, but they deserve it. He ignores the others. Very early on, I had two rams, but the smaller one got aggressively bullied by the larger one, and I rehomed it.

You might have just got unlucky with the pleco. Fish can get injured and stressed in transit, and there's usually a lot of transit that happens between the breeders and the LFS, well before it gets to your tank. Additionally, I don't know how on the ball your LFS is (or how on the ball their suppliers are), but Ancistrus can't survive on whatever algae the tank produces. You need to feed them! If someone wasn't, it might have been compromised before bought it.