Rams: Male Or Female?

[mark4785]

Hello,

I have recently stocked my 120 litre aquarium with numerous Dwarf Cichlids (Rams) and was wondering if some of the more experienced Cichlid keepers could identify the sex of each of them. I understand that male Bolivian/German Blue Rams can be very territorial and so I would appreciate it if somebody could identify how many males are contained within the aquarium (I personally believe there is 1 male German Blue paired with a female German Blue and 3 male Bolivian Rams and 1 female Bolivian).

I have taken some high detail pictures and inserted them below:

Bolivian Ram No.1 - Male or Female?

Bolivian Ram No.2 - Male or Female?

Bolivian Ram No.3 - Male or Female?

Bolvian Ram No.4 - Male or Female?

German Ram No.1 - Male or Female?

German Ram No.2 - Male or Female?

German Ram Pair?

I was told by a LFS employee that keeping this quantity of Rams would be no issue. Is this correct?

Edit: Also, what sort of feeding regime do such Dwarf Cichlids prefer? I currently have some extremely small pellets but I don't know what is considered over-feeding or under-feeding and what quantity will influence a large nitrate rise.

Look forward to receiving everyone's opinions/feedback.

Thank you,

Mark.

 

[ajs2294]

Keeping that many rams in a 120L is a problem especially with 3 male bolivians to one male. It's best to stick to a single pair if you have a small amount of territory. I have a full grown pair of Bolivians in a 29G and I couldn't see another pair getting along well in there.

 

[mark4785]

Keeping that many rams in a 120L is a problem especially with 3 male bolivians to one male. It's best to stick to a single pair if you have a small amount of territory. I have a full grown pair of Bolivians in a 29G and I couldn't see another pair getting along well in there.

Ok thank you for that Ajs2294.

More opinions/votes needed please!

 

[Curiosity101]

You know my experiences and opinions with the rams already. Short answer, yes there are almost definitely going to be issues.

But just to confirm I agree there are 3 males in there, but possibly 4. The only one i'd slightly consider a possible female is ram number 1... but none of them are fully grown and things can change.

Edit: Oh and obviously the male/female pair of GBRs.

 

[mark4785]

You know my experiences and opinions with the rams already. Short answer, yes there are almost definitely going to be issues.

But just to confirm I agree there are 3 males in there, but possibly 4. The only one i'd slightly consider a possible female is ram number 1... but none of them are fully grown and things can change.

Edit: Oh and obviously the male/female pair of GBRs.

Thanks Curiousity . Although I did think B Ram no 3 was female (it isn't being bothered by any of the other Rams and it has rather plain colours).

 

[jacko32]

i would say 1 and possibly 4 are female i would see how it goes for a few days see which 2 get on best and keep those then just keep the pair of blues

 

[Essjay]

Just to chip in with my recent experience.

A few months ago I got two bolivian rams for my 125 litre which turned out to be male (I posted some pics on here and everyone agreed they were males) They lived together reasonably peacefully with only the odd bit of nipping. Then I found another shop with some easily sexable ones, so I got two females, on the understanding they'd take one back, and even a male from the other shop if I had problems. As soon as the females went into the tank, the males attacked each other so I had to move one to my QT. For several days, the remaining male divided his attention between the two females, then he and one of the females ganged up on the second female, so she had to be removed too. Exactly a week after I bought the females, I took back a male and female and the pair I kept spawned that afternoon.

Going by the behaviour of my rams in a tank the same size as yours, I wouldn't have more than one male in with a female. And with a bonded pair, any more than two is too many. Maybe in a bigger tank it would be possible to have more than one pair, but not in my 125 litres.

 

[mark4785]

Well, the LFS have offered to swap the male Bolivian Rams for another type of fish but I'm still struggling to identify the sexes of each. I have taken a look at the article link that Nobody of the Goat posted and it didn't make differentiating males from females any better i'm sorry to say.

Essjay, thank you for that valuable information. I think I will take all four of the Bolivian Rams back (male or female) and go for completely different type of fish that won't cause the German Blue male to go nuts! Problem is, I don't know what alternatives would live with the German Blues'.

Any suggestions for alternative fishes is appreciated.

 

[meguro]

ur bolivian rams look like 3 males and a female while ur blue rams are male and female. coincidentally the bolivian ram in the picture of the female blue ram appears to be female

i would consider 6 rams of varying species too many for a 120L tank. perhaps if u had 6 of all 1 species they might behave a little more peacefully like most earth-eater cichlids tend to do in larger numbers. but even then a group that size would be more suited to a 4ft ~50g tank.

this video here (not my tank) has a large group of rams but the tank size is stated as 420L and 120x70x50cm in the comments.