German Blue Rams

[Benauld]

Hi,

I've been having a devil of a game trying to get the so-called "Search" function to find this - It doesn't allow you to search for words less than four letters, so guess what? Both "Ram" and "Sex" go straight out the window! - Anyway, I'm sorry to start with a rant!

I just wanted to know whether two females would be O.K. with one male? The reason I ask is because I currently have one of each. However, despite there being plenty of hiding places in the tank, the male persistently dogs the female and tonight I noticed she has torn fins. I was hoping another female might "divide and conquer" so to speak, keeping him too busy to persistently harrass any one female without rest.

Any help/advice, as ever, is always really appreciated!

 

[MHunt]

Adding a second female may do the trick, it's commonly used with other dwarf Cichlids such as Apisto's too as a single male may breed with several females.

It's a good thing you tried the fish forums search, if you'd put Ram Sex into google who knows what you'd have come up with

 

[Waterbox]

LOL

Yeah adding another female will help. You will probably still find that one of the females get beat up a little still. I have 3 females for my male and when he pairs up with one the other 2 get chased around a bit.

 

[thegnu]

With apisto's the males take no responsability in caring for their eggs or fry. Thats why they can breed with more than one female at a time. They patrol their territory which houses their female's territorys. They generally have fewer eggs than the ram and their fry behave much better than the rams fry, the female keeping them very close to the ground and they lay their eggs very close to the ground
Rams on the other hand will breed and raise their fry as a pair usually a lot higher up on a plant leaf or on a piece of bogwood (apisto's would dig a pit underneath the bogwood) the male ram usually takes a much larger role than the female in taking care of their eggs, and to a lesser extent the fry. The fry of the rams dont behave nearly as well as the apisto's fry, staying higher up in the water column and spreading out more and even with two parents herding them up (compaired to one parent in the case of the apisto's) they would find it harder to defend them than a apistogramma. The male ram WILL breed with two females at the same time, but he will leave the caring duties of his first clutch to the first female and without him she will almost certainly eat her own clutch

 

[Benauld]

Thanks for the replies!

TBH, I have no intention of breeding. If it happens, chances are, any fry will be picked off by my tetras anyway. I'm only looking to try and divert some of the aggression shown by the male away from just the one recipient (he doesn't pay any attentin to ANY other fish in the tank). BTW, I've asked this elsewhere but had little (well, actually no) response does anybody know whether rams would be compatible with sparkling gouramis?

Cheers!

 

[MHunt]

does anybody know whether rams would be compatible with sparkling gouramis?

Glad you've got some helpful information here. I don't see why sparkling gourami's would be a problem with Rams. If they're the fish i'm thinking of, they're small generally peaceful 2" fish. Should cause no problems that i could see.