Qs About Gbrs

[Curiosity101]

You could take side on pictures (preferably with fins up) and we could give some 'rough' sexings.

 

[coldcazzie]

I shall do that, although I doubt I'll get good pictures for a couple of days.

Will post when I manage to get some piccies

 

[meguro]

As i said above GBRs need a min of 28c, sorry but you can't keep them with Bolivians. The Bolivians would kill them.

I highly doubt the last sentence.

 

[Curiosity101]

As i said above GBRs need a min of 28c, sorry but you can't keep them with Bolivians. The Bolivians would kill them.

I highly doubt the last sentence.

^^ Agreed, I missed that before. Bolivians would never kill the GRB's, so long as they were given enough room then they would co-exist fine. And if not given enough room then they would bicker...but that's about it.

 

[Wills]

we could give some 'rough' sexings.

sorry curiosity but I had to laugh

 

[Curiosity101]

Oh ha ha! Now we all know that isn't what I meant

 

[coldcazzie]

Doesn't matter now as the GBRs have gone back to QSS. As soon as they realised who I was they were fine with it, and gave me the refund for them, and he even said I should blame the pregnancy hormones for the slip up!

As for P@H, they had the bolivians in with some other kind of cichlid, but I didn't know what they were (was also v diff to tell with the tank lights off!)

I arrived at just the right time - the guy was in the process of releasing all the new stock into the tanks and I asked if I could have some rams and he said no, until I reasoned that I didn't want any of the new stock, only the ones which had been there a while, and the new stock were still in the bag so there'd be no risk of stressing them out more. So then he went to ask someone else, and they eventually decided I could have them after all.

I explained why I wanted em and he was very interested because they were labelled as "Royal Rams" and I called them bolivian rams, so then he asked me if the other ones were royal rams, and I said I was pretty sure that royal ram was just a common name for bolivian and that I didn't have a clue what the other ones were.

If I could find out what they were and do some research on them I might consider getting some as well, but I cant find any pictures on the species list that looks like them - is there a cichlid website I could peruse to see if I could fine them? Unless I'm totally wrong about the royal ram thing?! lol

 

[Curiosity101]

You're completely correct. Royal + Bolivian are the same.

It was hilarious...I phoned up my local shop (a very bad unscrupulous one!) and asked if they had any bolivians 'No we don't, we've been trying to get them for ages but they just aren't coming in'.

I go into the shop, low n behold, a tank full of them. 'What are these?' I asked... 'Oh they're royal rams they are' I was like 'Oh right'...'Do you know when you'll be getting some bolivian rams in?'

'Oh yes they're on order at the moment, we're having a really hard time getting hold of them though. But there should be some soon' (Ie. 'Please come back and spend money...even though I'm lying to you)

I kept a straight face and just left. Went to a good fish shop later that day and the guy actually cracked up, he couldn't believe what that guy had said to me. I was just like....yeah....

 

[Joller]

i find that a well fed fish has a more prominent vent (in case you weren't too keen on handling your fish)

and in response to OP bolivian rams seem to be very dull in shops, but you should find that after a week or two in your tank they will colour up really well, and it gets better with age. they're also alot hardier than blue rams

 

[coldcazzie]

Yeh to be honest they've already coloured up a lot and are also out and about a lot more than the german ones were, even after only 24hrs. 24hrs after putting the GBRs in the tank they were still grey with stress stripes sitting at the back looking like they might keel over.

I even managed to get some piccies this morning, but only on my phone so not good qual, will have another go later with the camera and see what I can do

I have to say the guy in P@H did genuinely look like he wanted to learn - even went and got a piece of paper and wrote down when I told him that German rams have red eyes and Bolivians have gold ones, bless him.

 

[meguro]

i thought the easiest way to tell gold/blues from bolivians was that the former have blue markings and the latter dont

 

[Curiosity101]

Nope, when they're stressed in the shop they take on a very washed out colour, which is VERY similar to bolivians. The easiest way of 100% determining bolivian from GBR is the red eye. Where as bolivians have a gold eye.