Pear gouramies and german blue rams

[Tyler777]

I'd been wanting to turn my 125 gallons tank into a tank with so many species. Right now I have 1 male pearl gouramie n 3 females, 2 dwarf gouramis, one big white molly one big pineapple swordtail female another seordtail female normal size, 2 serpae tetras 9 platties 4 rainbow Australian fish 5 yo yo loaches 4 corys and 1 siamese algae eater.
What I want is to have the corys n yo you with 7 or 8 pearl gouramies n at least 5 German blue rams , would that work ???

This is not gonna happen anytime soon bcause I need t re house the mollies, swordtails, serpae tetras n Australian rainbows. I just want pearl gouramies n blue rams besides the bottom feeders.

Could that work between the pearl gouramies n the German blue rams ?

 

[Innesfan]

The Rams like it very warm with many breeders saying 86F is ideal. Most corys would hate the heat except perhaps Hoplisoma sterbai and Hoplisoma oiapoquensis. That's the very top of the Pearl gourami temp range so they should tolerate it.

 

[WhistlingBadger]

Yeah, cories are definitely going to want it cooler than that. Gouramis will be OK with that temp but it's pretty warm for them, too. IME they like it around 75-80. Otherwise, I think 7-8 pearl gouramis in a 125g would be about right. Get rid of the rams and it's a solid plan.

Those are pretty small groups for serpaes and rainbows; they're going to want more friends than that. I know you're planning on rehoming but just thought I'd throw that out there.

 

[seaweeds]

I have two female german blue ram and 2 female pearl gourami. I have the tank temp at 76-77 degrees Fahrenheit and they are doing fine. I read online that german blue ram are prone to ich disease due to inbreeding and temp needs to be above 80 to prevent those disease but I think I got a good breed. They are constantly eating. A few days ago, my two ram fight over a clay pot and came to a stare off. I think it's because I under fed them. I turned the light blue which made the tank a little dark and after a while, both back off.

 

[Innesfan]

Everyone I know and know about who keeps rams keeps them well above 80F usually no lower than 82-84F. 76F is way too cool for them. I kept my wilds at 82-86F successfully.

And I don't think underfeeding has anything to do with the squabble. It was territorial.

Just curious, why do you select females only?

 

[seaweeds]

I bought unsexed online and it turned out to be all female. I have gold laser cory that cannot tolerate high temp. At like 80-82 F, their armor cracked. At 76-77 F, it's suitable for all fish in my tank. I usually fed rams pellets with flakes. I stopped feeding pellets and I guess flakes is not enough so they started getting territorial around food time.

I usually try online methods until I touched the water at those temps and it is scalding hot so I no longer try those temps unless it's an emergencies.

 

[GaryE]

The heat for rams isn't to avoid ich, it's because they are fish from the Llanos, a savannah region in Venezuela and Colombia. The sunlight gets to the water without the protection of the canopy of trees most of our fish have overhead. That water is hot.

Rams have adapted to that warmth. A lot of small fish like Apistos or Mikrogeophagus have little specializations that let them thrive in places their enemies/predators can't go. When you're small, any advantage helps. But those specializations are genetic, and have to be respected. If you aren't keeping rams warm, you are not treating them well.

The inbreeding is a myth, although German rams are just a variety bred in that country for extra blue. Most of the ones in stores come from Singapore, Malaysia. Thailand or Indonesia, but the "German" label sells them.

They have no different needs than wild ramirezi temperature-wise.

Sparring is natural to them. They like to have territories.

 

[seaweeds]

It's not a myth. You can search german blue ram online and there's a lot of topic on german blue ram's disease. People kept german blue ram above 80F to prevent them from getting sick and developed disease. It was due to poor genetics that people cannot kept gbr at lower temp. I bought these gbr small at half of their current size and they have adapted to my tank and water changes. I put heater at one corner of the tank, if they do not like cold temp, they would be near the heater but they are not most of the time.

 

[Innesfan]

I agree with @GaryE entirely. By trying to accommodate a cory, you are mistreating the warmth-loving rams.

The solution is to separate them so that you can provide for the needs of each species. Besides, corys should be in schools of at least 6 and separating them from the rams will afford you the opportunity to do what's right for them as well.

 

[GaryE]

I'll argue it's a myth.

Mikrogeophagus ramirezi is well documented as living in water bodies above 80f, well above it. They've lived that way for who knows how long. And they have adapted to a difficult, extreme environment that would kill many other fish we keep.

So after dozens of generations in captivity, maybe 50 years compared to tens of thousands (possibly) of years, people put them in water much cooler than they evolved to live in. And they call that a disease? It's good genetics. Their genes have preserved an important detail that has allowed them to survive in nature.

You may as well stick tropical orchids outside in my Canadian garden in winter, and say it's inbreeding and bad genetics that kills them. People would laugh at me for that, and that's probably what you should do with the ram experts you've been reading. You can move on from that, and start basing how you keep fish on how they live in nature. It's fun to learn.

It is easy for the online 'experts' to say they know better. They could - the information is there. Rams, whether gold, blue, German Blue, Poughkeepsie blue, or wild, are warm water fish. Warm in their world is well above 80f. Fancy rams are inbred, but why would anyone expect them to like waters in the 70s f when they come from waters in the 80s?

Like @Innesfan , I've kept wild caught rams, direct out of the Llanos region. They had to stay warmer than any other dwarf Cichlid I've kept. They wouldn't have survived for long in the 70s, and would have sickened at (to them) low temperatures.

 

[Tyler777]

I'll argue it's a myth.

Mikrogeophagus ramirezi is well documented as living in water bodies above 80f, well above it. They've lived that way for who knows how long. And they have adapted to a difficult, extreme environment that would kill many other fish we keep.

So after dozens of generations in captivity, maybe 50 years compared to tens of thousands (possibly) of years, people put them in water much cooler than they evolved to live in. And they call that a disease? It's good genetics. Their genes have preserved an important detail that has allowed them to survive in nature.

You may as well stick tropical orchids outside in my Canadian garden in winter, and say it's inbreeding and bad genetics that kills them. People would laugh at me for that, and that's probably what you should do with the ram experts you've been reading. You can move on from that, and start basing how you keep fish on how they live in nature. It's fun to learn.

It is easy for the online 'experts' to say they know better. They could - the information is there. Rams, whether gold, blue, German Blue, Poughkeepsie blue, or wild, are warm water fish. Warm in their world is well above 80f. Fancy rams are inbred, but why would anyone expect them to like waters in the 70s f when they come from waters in the 80s?

Like @Innesfan , I've kept wild caught rams, direct out of the Llanos region. They had to stay warmer than any other dwarf Cichlid I've kept. They wouldn't have survived for long in the 70s, and would have sickened at (to them) low temperatures.

Thank you for all the info you shared my friend

 

[AJ356]

At 76-77 F, it's suitable for all fish in my tank.

But it's not suitable for all your fish, that's the point we are trying to make to you. The Rams might seem "fine" to you, but are making a big mistake keeping them at this temperature, and they will be the ones who suffer in the end.