Si's Tank Journal

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Better picture of the other fish that we thinks female...

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Would silver hatchets be good dither fish for my rams?

edit: That MTS is dead. Not sure why? Wouldn't surprise me if my male ram killed it he is a bit of a bully. Last night he kept just poking one of the kuhlis. Only gently but he did it several times and then started poking the female, and then showing off
 
Lovely fish :) I have found Hikari Micro Wafers go down very well with Bolivian Rams, plus Tetra Tabimin :)
 
Thanks :) Will look into those, cheers! I use the tetra tabimin already other than them being a bit big they seem good.
 
Thanks :) Will look into those, cheers! I use the tetra tabimin already other than them being a bit big they seem good.

Yeah, they start to dissolve quickly though so they can start picking bits off :) The Micro Wafers are great as a staple :)
 
It won't be long and the bossy ram is going to start trying to eat my finger. He keeps getting more confident and the other day he came right up to my finger when I was moving a plant and was just staring at it :lol:

Still can't find that amano that has shred its exo-skeleton. I hope he is in a good hiding place!
 
Lovely looking rams, though they look quite pale from all the pics you've posted of them. I haven't really seen a lot of bolivians but both of mine are quite gold coloured on the front half of their bodies too. They do look like a male and female in the pics like the two I have. Although it throws me a bit because I thought males had flat bellies and females had round ones which yours don't really seem to differentiate.

Either way, lovely looking tank and fish! :good:
 
Thanks! They got very stressed on the move so therefore were colourless and very shy. I think they're still developing colour, since the first pics on the first page the've made vast improvement :)
 
that other fish is female

it can take some time for the nice gold colour on the front half of the body to develop. just like the blue specks in the anal, dorsal and tail fins. and if theyre feeling stressed/harassed (say the female when the male is trying to breed, or in a new environment) they can dim their colour considerably. it also helps if u have a light that gives out a nice spectrum
 
Just fed them some crushed peas, they weren't too keen and spat some out but thats all they're getting today :lol: Tank is such a mess, the shrimp are eating parts of the bogwood non stop and this means there is shrimp poo everywhere and/or kuhli poo... and I did a sand syphon yesterday! finding it difficult to syphon around some of the plants though so may get a smaller syphon.
 
When I feed the rams the male doesn't like to see the female feed, is this normal?

Sometimes its quite funny because he'll have one side of the tank to himself and as soon as the female comes into it he flares his dorsal fin and the female might come closer and he chases her and sometimes nudges her. Normally though they'll spend most of their time floating around together sometimes they tease each other a bit. She seems to bend her back tail when she is infront of him somtimes (lol?).

I put a bit of slate in... I think i need thicker slate? but the roof slate will have to do for now.

If they are a pair will it be more likely they breed if I bring the temp up from 25-26? (there is kuhlis in there too but they can go pretty high as well)

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Theres a piece of slate under the filter thats been there a while, they love it there.

edit: they obviously like it they're already both on it :)
 
Turned it up to 27degreesC but it is about 26.5 I think. They still seem like hanging around the heater so maybe I should turn it up more?

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:) female hiding and the male watching her!
 
Going on holiday on friday, i've done a 20% waterchange today and i'll do a 30% tomorrow as well. Hopefully the fish will get fed once whilst I am away for a week.

I was thinking about adding some other dwarf cichlids but decided its best not too, I may add one male like a cockatoo or 1-2 more bolivan rams but not sure as I have 5 amano shrimp in there, and as annoying as all their pooing is they're still fun to watch so didn't want to rehome them and adding a trio of cockatoos would kill them probably -_-

Going to get a new filter, all pond solutions one when I get back from hol and start getting some more fish. I'm thinking rummy nose tetra if possible... maybe black phantom tetra as well, going to look into killifish too. Maybe hatchets if all my fish decide to stick to the bottom.

Will be adding some amazon frogbit too as the rams seem quite shy when the lights are on and its probably down to a light substrate and bright lights, not subdued lighting like most the fish I want prefer.


Any ideas for fish/dither fish are welcome :)
 
I added 6 rummy nose tetra, will add 2-4 more asap. Also added some frogbit too... all the fish are counted for now i'm back from hol.

Also should be getting the all pond solution 1000lph filter in the next couple of days.



A couple of issues I have about the rams is that they seem really shy when the lights are on...which is annoying because you can see them much better when the lights are on. I thought maybe its to bright for them so stuck some frobit in there, no where near enough yet though. But i've seen them more active in much brighter tanks... Also the female is generally restricted to behind all the bogwood when the lights are off because he seems to control the front of the tank, they spend most of their time apart, sometimes they just relax when the lights are on together but you can't see that so well. He is certainly easy to watch now in the evening as he just swims up and down looking at his reflection. sometimes the female is about at the front but he often chases her back, never aggressively although they did have a little fight over a peice of food once and both had it in their mouths lol.

I've gone of the cockatoo idea even though my LFS has them in... I don't think it'll work and if it doesn't work it'd be difficult to rehome them. I can't really think of any other fish that will work that I like... I do quite like choc gouramis but difficult to find.

On a brighter note the rummy nose look great and seem really happy, its not a mature tank so I didn't expect the move to go so well.
 

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