Potential Tank Mates For German Blue Rams

[mancin]

They really like the amazon swords, I believe this is the plant they particularly like for spawning, so I would certainly recommend some of those if you do go with angels.

I actually already have 2 Amazon Swords in the tank, so that works out well! I haven't gotten into heavy planting yet, so all I have are the Amazon Swords and I'm also trying to grow some Java Moss on a piece of slate rock (based on instructions I found in the Planting section of the Forum). If I want to get anything else, I'm going to have to upgrade my lighting! The Amazon Swords came with the tank and have been in there for awhile, so they are doing well with the current lightning, but I know it's not the ideal lighting for a fully planted tank.

I'm going to go to a couple LFS today to see if I can track down some fish! I found a place to take my current fish, so that's one worry off my plate.

Thanks for all your help so far!!! I'll keep everyone posted.

 

[TigerIssey]

Not a problem.

There are a few more plants you could get away with. I only have low light levels as I did not want to bother with CO2 and EI dosing.

Look at
Anubias
Cryptocorynes - some of them
Elodea
Java fern

Cabomba
Hygrophila
Limnophila sessiliflora
These will grow under lower light but will have a different growth pattern. There will be more that will do this, have a look in the plant section and on the net.

 

[mancin]

Not a problem.

There are a few more plants you could get away with. I only have low light levels as I did not want to bother with CO2 and EI dosing.

Look at
Anubias
Cryptocorynes - some of them
Elodea
Java fern

Cabomba
Hygrophila
Limnophila sessiliflora
These will grow under lower light but will have a different growth pattern. There will be more that will do this, have a look in the plant section and on the net.

Thank you for this! I'm going to look into these plants. The only one I've heard of is a Java Fern.

Good news! I was able to find some fish today. I successfully re-homed my current fish and now have 4 German Blue Rams (1M, 3F) and 10 Harlequin Rasboras. Since there were no obvious pairs in the tank, I thought I'd try 4 GBRs and see how it works out. If I need to re-home the other females after the pair has formed, I'll look into it at that time. From here on out I'll be stocking slowly as to not overload the tank. The fish look SOO tiny compared to what I had in there before!

Here's a pic of one of the Rams:

 

[TigerIssey]

Thats great. Don't forget to keep an eye on nitrates and try to keep them around 10-15ppm, never let them go above 20 as they are too sensitive.

Good luck with them, they will reward you in no time. Very characterful little cichlids these.

 

[mancin]

Thats great. Don't forget to keep an eye on nitrates and try to keep them around 10-15ppm, never let them go above 20 as they are too sensitive.

Good luck with them, they will reward you in no time. Very characterful little cichlids these.

Thanks so much for your advice. You have been extremely helpful!!! I checked the levels before I re-homed the previous fish and got the new fish so I would at least have a 'baseline'. Since it's an established tank, I wasn't expecting anything crazy, but I wasn't sure how the Nitrates would be affected by the live plants. Nitrates were at 5ppm, so that seems good! Ammonia and Nitrites of course were at 0ppm. I'm hoping to be able to keep the Nitrates low with the addition of some of the other plants you suggested, on top of keeping up with water changes. I'm pretty excited about this tank.

PS. I'd still love to see updated pics of your tank whenever you have a chance.

 

[TigerIssey]

I need to do a water change then will do the pictures. I have not forgotten.

Nitrates are looking good, yes the plants will help. Keeping the stocking reasonable will also help as will a decent routine for w/c.