Gbr Confusion

[kuzyaburst]

So I went down to my LFS and planned on buying 2 male and 4 female German Blue Rams, but turned out they had no females; I still wanted to have them in my tank so decided to buy 1 male and buy the females at a later date. I always was told that more than 1 GBR male in one tank without enough space and females they would end up fighting and killing each other, but a guy that has lots of knowledge on fish who works there told me that since these GBRs have been in the same tank it would be fine to have 2 males with enough space and put in at the same time... So I ended up buying 2 males, it's been 4hrs since I released them into the tank and they're not aggressive at all! I was expecting them to be more territorial and be on opposite ends of the tank, but they're swimming side by side I almost thought they were a couple. They both have bright colors, and almost never flare up unless another fish tries fin nipping them. I watched them for 30 min to see how they act (btw I tried my best to watch the fish at the LFS to see which ones showed minimum aggression) these guys didn't show any aggression towards each other nor others. I'm completely confused now, either I picked 2 extremely peaceful males or one of them has to be a female. The tank size isn't really big either it's about 36g, what do you guys think about this? Is it possible to have multiple male GBRs in one tank with no females and yet let them be in total zen mode? Now I'm kind of scared to add females to the tank because they might show aggression once they show up, I'll keep observing them to see how they behave. I'll upload a picture later, maybe you guys can identify if they're both males because I couldn't.

 

[Byron]

I would wait a period and observe these two.  Fish often behave contrary to the norm when stressed, and being netted, bagged, and placed in a different environment (water conditions and hardscape) is certainly going to stress them.  However, this has its limits, and if these are two males I would expect things to be very different tomorrow if not sooner.
 
Having said that, you will not in my experience and opinion ever see two males that are "normal" behaving as you describe.  So that means perhaps one or both are not males.  The photo may help, though again they are still likely to be "off colour" and even normally it is not always easy distinguishing gender with these fish.  If you couldn't tell they were both males (your last sentence), who did suggest this?
 
Another issue here is that other fish are trying to nip them; this doesn't bode well.  What fish are in with them?
 
Byron.

 

[kuzyaburst]

I would wait a period and observe these two.  Fish often behave contrary to the norm when stressed, and being netted, bagged, and placed in a different environment (water conditions and hardscape) is certainly going to stress them.  However, this has its limits, and if these are two males I would expect things to be very different tomorrow if not sooner.
 
Having said that, you will not in my experience and opinion ever see two males that are "normal" behaving as you describe.  So that means perhaps one or both are not males.  The photo may help, though again they are still likely to be "off colour" and even normally it is not always easy distinguishing gender with these fish.  If you couldn't tell they were both males (your last sentence), who did suggest this?
 
Another issue here is that other fish are trying to nip them; this doesn't bode well.  What fish are in with them?
 
Byron.

One Serpae Tetra was nipping at them when I put them in the tank but the nipping stopped, they're currently just swimming around the tank. The don't even care about the other fish, they just swim wherever they want sometimes they stay in one spot near a couple plants. Here's a picture. The fish I have are 4 YoYo loaches, BN Pleco, 6 Serpae Tetras, 4 Neon Tetras, 1 Male Boesemani Rainbow, 1 male Turquoise Rainbow, 1 male New guinean rainbow, 1 female new guinean rainbow, SAE. In the picture they're not next to each other but they're very close to each other maybe 3 inches apart. I'm sorry that my camera is garbage and won't focus properly but I tried.

 

[Byron]

I'll confine myself to the initial question, and say that in my view you have a male/female pair.  The fish in the left photo is certainly male, and though the right photo is not clear, from the dorsal and anal fins shape the fish looks to me to be female.  If they are getting along, and continue to do so, I would not recommend adding any further rams.

 

[kuzyaburst]

I'll confine myself to the initial question, and say that in my view you have a male/female pair.  The fish in the left photo is certainly male, and though the right photo is not clear, from the dorsal and anal fins shape the fish looks to me to be female.  If they are getting along, and continue to do so, I would not recommend adding any further rams.

Ok, thank you for the advice and clarification. I'll keep a close eye on these 2 to make sure nothing bad happens.