Rams

[~Jason~]

Hi I just bought 2 rams 1 is a German Blue Ram and the other is a Balloon belly Ram. I have plenty of hiding places but the slightly bigger 1 will not leave the smaller one alone. My tank is a 20g I am starting to think they are bouth males. The fish place were I got them said they would be fine together what do you think? Also besides a Clown Pleco what would go good with them?

Thnx
Jason

 

[tenohfive]

I take it theres nothing else in there at the moment? Have you cycled the tank?

2 males in a 20G could well end up with problems. Watch them carefully for the next 24 hours, if nothing changes take one of them back. Rams if kept in two's should ideally be a male female pair. And water quality is very important with Rams, you'll hear different figures quoted but my experience is that minimum of 30% weekly, and ideally to get full colouration (or if your pH is high) two 20-30% changes a week.

As for what else...any flavour of community fish. Personally I like pentazona barbs or some flavour of tetra, but depending on the size of the tank (if its 3ft or more long) I'd go for 6 praecox rainbows, especially if the tanks in a position to catch some natural light. Or even a mix of two types...some strange schooling mixes work great. For instance my ember tetra's and pentazonas look great when they school together.

So something like that, and a small school of corys - 6-8.

 

[~Jason~]

tenohfive

Thank you for the the advise. I kind of cheated to cycle my tank what I did was I went to my mothers house when she was doing a 20-30 % water change on her 50g tank and stole 4 gallons of water and her old filters lol. I let my tank set for 5 days and then went and got the 2 rams. They have been in there for 4 days now and look healthy my concern is for the well being of the smaller ram. I went to the pet shop were I got them and they said I could bring 1 back no problem so I will be doing that shortly. My PH in the tank is between 6.8 and 7.

I do have a little experence with fresh water and salt water tanks but it has been a while since I had fish. When I was growing up my dad always had fish tanks and when i became a teenager I about 14 years old (24 years ago lol) I had 4 Tanks of my own one 200g one 100g and two 20g. i kept mostly Oscors, Firemouth, Jack dempsys, ect.

This little town I live in now dose not have a big selection of fish unfortunatly but i am going to trade the German Blue Ram in for somthing. I will keep you posted.

Once again Thank You for your input and any more input would be apretiated

~Jason~

 

[hensonc4098]

All sounds resolved but for future tank set-ups - you don't need to take water, just the filter. It's so much easier Hardly any of the good bacteria that you want are in the water - most are in the filter or gravel. Just to make life easier

 

[snowflake311]

Hi I just bought 2 rams 1 is a German Blue Ram and the other is a Balloon belly Ram. I have plenty of hiding places but the slightly bigger 1 will not leave the smaller one alone. My tank is a 20g I am starting to think they are bouth males. The fish place were I got them said they would be fine together what do you think? Also besides a Clown Pleco what would go good with them?

Thnx
Jason

Yup you have 2 males. they will be ok unless they are like mine. one day all hell broke loss. I had 2 male balloon rams. They lived together for 5 months till the dominate one killed the weak one. It would be best to take one back. You could keep cpry cats, tetras, and other peaceful fish with them .