Rams and Temp

[GTR]

I've had a couple of Blue Rams for about six months. The coloration when I first got them was great. But as the weeks pass they seem to be pretty drab looking. Very alert and active, just short on color. It was suggested on a plant board that they needed to be kept at something like 80-82° I think the tank is closer to 76°,

I think they're fed well with a diet of flake, granules, pellets that hit the bottom for the cories and live worms 5 or 6 times a week consistently.

Water is soft, using all RO. CO2 runs high but not enough to show obvious problems with any fish.

Thanks
Steve

 

[verbal]

What are their tank mates is it just cories? Do you have a pair?

You may have had courting or competition when you first got them and it may have died down(temp and possible CO2 would be the culprits I suspect).

 

[GTR]

Tank has a bunch of cories, a few juvinile BNP, dozen or so cardinals, 3 adult angels and 4 angels about 4 months old. The only aggression I ever see in the tank is from the adult angels and that's always directed at each other.

I don't have a clue if a have a pair of rams but they seem to be completely uninterested in each other. Not wanting them to breed, just looking for the coloration they had when I bought them. It's sad when the fish at Petsmart look better than mine. lol

If they need warmer water I may just trap them and pass them along.

 

[D-money]

Rams are warm water fish...82-83 is more to their liking.

 

[Andrewtfw]

When I was managing a lfs we kept rams at 84-86 degrees.

 

[mchambers]

Maybe Frank Cowherd will weigh in here. He breeds beautiful rams and I think keeps the temperatures in the 76-80 range.

 

[Frank Cowherd]

I have raised a lot of GB rams but that may not qualify me as an expert on this topic. I really have not studied these fish for factors that lead to little color.

I have spawned them in hard water but that is a hard thing to do. It is a lot easier to spawn them in soft water that is neutral to slightly acidic. as for temperature, GB rams can be kept well at any temperature from 72 to 88, but they tend to be rather short lived cichlids in MHO, usually around 3 years. I spawn them at 78 and raise the fry at 78 to 82. THe higher the temperature the faster the fry grow but it also seems that the higher the temperature the shorter time they live.

Also, if you only have one sex you might not see much color. The fish get better color when there are both sexes present, and the females never color up as much as the males. If the temperature is too low you might also not get much color as the fish are not thinking about spawning.

Also the food you feed can have an influence on the fish's color. You might look at Bob Bock's notes on this which were referenced in a recent thread by him in this forum.

 

[GTR]

Thanks everyone for the advice and info. Looking at my Rams and web pages on how to sex them it seems I may have 2 females. So it looks like I might be fighting a lost cause with these two. lol

They're still an interesting addition, they seem to stay withing a few inches of the substrate all full time.

 

[Spine]

Females are easy to spot,they have a pink spot on their stomach and the males don't.

 

[samsmobb]

Females have pink when they have eggs,ales have a much longer tip to their top fin where females tend to stay shorter and pointing up, females black spot on side usually is covered in some blue or yellow spot where the males isn't, also depends because petsmart sells Asian bred rams as oppose to German blue rams, and yes rams prefer high temps like discus. Mine are kept at 82-84, lowering the ph may help with color b.c they like slightly acidic water but if your using straight RO make sure to mix in trace elements because you can starve fish of these causing them problems

 

[samsmobb]

I'll take them if you give pass them up

 

[neut]

I've had a couple of Blue Rams for about six months. The coloration when I first got them was great. But as the weeks pass they seem to be pretty drab looking. Very alert and active, just short on color.

What kind of pellets/flakes are you feeding? Unless they were hormoned up when you got them (not something I'd normally associate with rams because its not really necessary) gradual loss of color suggests food as a possibility imo.

Had a similar experience with another type of fish years ago. In that case it turned out to be food, prompting me to do a lot of food testing and discover how much difference there can be. Where I'd started out in fishkeeping being fussy about the foods I fed my fish, at that point I was at a stage where I thought fish food is fish food. The extensive testing I did proved I was way wrong and ever since I've been a lot more interested in the subject and much more particular about what I feed.

Other things can affect color also, like what is or isn't in your water, filters overdue for cleaning, tankmates, etc. so I'm not saying I have the answer in your case, but it certainly can be food.

 

[mchambers]

Okay, I'll bite, so to speak

What kind of pellets/flakes are you feeding? Unless they were hormoned up when you got them (not something I'd normally associate with rams because its not really necessary) gradual loss of color suggests food as a possibility imo.

Had a similar experience with another type of fish years ago. In that case it turned out to be food, prompting me to do a lot of food testing and discover how much difference there can be. Where I'd started out in fishkeeping being fussy about the foods I fed my fish, at that point I was at a stage where I thought fish food is fish food. The extensive testing I did proved I was way wrong and ever since I've been a lot more interested in the subject and much more particular about what I feed.

Other things can affect color also, like what is or isn't in your water, filters overdue for cleaning, tankmates, etc. so I'm not saying I have the answer in your case, but it certainly can be food.

I'm inclined to believe that not all fish foods are created equal, although I've never tested it scientifically. What kinds of food have you found to be best, for color or otherwise?

 

[neut]

LOL... Honestly, I normally avoid actually recommending foods, just because I've seen so many food arguments over the years, but occasionally I make an exception and I guess I let myself in for this one, though it wasn't my intention... So take the following as just a personal opinion based on my personal experience and reading.

Foods I prefer: Omega One and NLS. Also found HBH soft spirulina or soft krill pellets to be pretty good, but quit using them when I noticed propylene glycol on their ingredients list (used in anti-freeze, brake fluild, etc. ), although I've seen the same products list glycerin instead of propylene glycol, glycerin being pretty benign as far as I know-- either substance would probably be there as the ingredient that keeps the pellets soft and moist.

While not my preference based on ingredients, I've honestly found Tetra Color to do pretty well for fish color and I know a couple of respected breeders/importers who use it. Overrated imo are several types of Hikari pellets. In my testing I saw a definite improvement in color over Hikari with both Omega One and NLS, though there are a couple of Hikari pellets (Massivore and Carnivore) that I haven't tried and can't say much about. Never tried Dainichi (some people swear by it) so can't say much about it, except that their ingredients list doesn't excite me.

Then there are some really inferior foods ime, Wardley for example.

I'm a big one for checking the ingredients list. Don't like to see too many starches or grains on the list and don't really like to see soy on the list. RE: fish food "anti-nutrient" factors in soybean meal:

Lilleeng used soya meal as the source of his ingredients, which is known to contain a series of anti-nutrients and to disturb the intestinal function of salmon. Lilleeng showed that intestinal immune defences become activated immediately (when) feeding with soya commences. He also showed that enzymes normally associated with protein digestion have abnormally high levels of activity in the intestines of salmon with enteritis as a result of soya feeding.

"Entertitis" mentioned in the excerpt above refers to intestinal inflammation. Over the past several years, I've read several articles regarding problems with soy as an ingredient in fish feed. Another example Here.

(Got into a discussion with a NLS distributor over soy a while back and he said NLS used a more expensive form of soy protein isolate that removed the anti-nutritional factors from soy... then, interestingly, NLS recently took soy out of their formula.)

 

[GTR]

Been out of touch for a few days. Water temp has been about 79°. I think I'm feeding quality foods and several feedings of live worms every week. I'll look up the info on my main flake, I've been buying it from Brine Shrimp Direct for about 10 years. The only weak spot in my feeding might be the pellets mainly fed for the corydoras in the tank. Much of that ends up being eaten form the bottom by the other fish, including the Rams.

 

[samsmobb]

Posting a picture could help in determining what is missing and have you tried making the water a bit acidic around ph 6-6.5?