Ram changing colour

[simer]

Hi

I bought a couple of Rams. Unfortunately the guy at my LFS told me that two males would be ok together and while they don't seem to fight too much one is definitely the more dominant and chases the other one off whenever he sees him. Thay both develpoed what I assumed was white spot last week so I started to treat the tank with esha exit as I read somewhere this was quite a good gentle medicine to give to a ram and the spots are starting to disappear.

The thing is the submissive one does a very strange thing. When we first got them the black stripe on his face was very pale, but after a while it became very pronounced like the one on his colleague's face. However recently it has faded again. Very wierd. In fact I have seen it come back momentarily, especially when he flicks his fin up. It's like he's blushing. However, the stripe completely disappears when he fronts up to other one. Is this a sign of submission on his part?

I'm about to move them all into a much bigger tank (at the moment they're in a 17G tank) - will this help or is there even a problem at all?

 

[Adistar]

This may be caused by stress either from the other fish, from whitespot, or from being in a new tank. Alot of fish will 'lighten' their colors when they are stressed, i kno some of mine do it when i turn on the lights but after a while they go back to normal color.

The bigger tank will definately help stop agression if their is any, but it may also cause more stress by taking it from the enviorment it is gettin used to now, and placing it in a new one.


Good luck

Josh

 

[scrappy]

I would definitely agree that the lightening of colour in your fish is likely to be stress from being chased and if it persists is likely to end up in the death of your ram.

My advice would be to seperate the fish (if you have another tank) or possibly take the fish back to the shop. Regardless of what your LFS guy says, 2 males is a mistake (unless of course you have a 250 gal tank like the display tanks at your LFS so they can claim their own territory and stay out of each others way), ideally in my opinion they should be kept in pairs (1 male & 1 female).

 

[simer]

Thanks for your replies.

They seem pretty ok at the moment as they don't see each other that much and I am assuming this will be better in the newer bigger tank. The thing is, they came from a much smaller display tank with about 8 to 10 of themso I am not sure how either one would be better off back at the shop.