german rams fighting

[ouchia]

so, i have both a male and female ram. they have been getting along fine, even laying eggs and guarding them, when all of a sudden the male is now attacking the female. now i did a substrate change, so i was feeding them less - once every other day, as instructed - so i'm hoping that's the problem and the male feels like he needs to fend for food. i'm not sure, though, what do you guys think? i started them back on a daily feeding schedule about a week ago, i'm hoping that this will start to work but for now it isn't. my lfs owner told me that i need to have several females to each male, but i'd like a second opinion. btw, i trust my lfs owner, his store is super clean and he is very knowledgable in other apects of tank keeping.

 

[parker313]

I've seen a couple of different opinions on the 'net. Some say the rams are monogamous, some say that they prefer a harem style breeding. Whatever the case, make sure you don't have just one male and 2 females - if a pair forms, they would harass and maybe kill the loner female. It may be one of those differences between individual fish.

Just as an FYI, so I don't look like I'm just making things up, here's one of the sources where I've seen it claimed that they prefer a harem breeding approach.

 

[semper fi]

you can't force a pair. you need to have several females to let the pair form naturally. could be he finds the female undesirable. also cutting back on feedings creates more aggression

 

[ouchia]

well, i understood that you can't force a pair, but they were very much a pair (and an egg-laying and protecting pair) for over a month before this aggression started... still confused...

 

[AmberC]

I know someone who had a 'pair' that were laying eggs and fine with eachother when all of a sudden the female killed the male. He thinks its because the male kept eating the eggs. So maybe its something like that?

 

[ouchia]

well, in this case it's the male after the female, she's getting darker and smaller now... getting a bit worried... i'm gonna buy some more females if this continues, no tank to separate them...