German Blue rams, and taking care of their eggs/fry

[Jarred Darque]

ok. My rams have had their second batch that I know of, I have had them for 2months, 1 male, 1 female, in a 10 gallon tank.
They have tankmates, 1 male dwarf puffer, 2 otos, 2 armano shrimp, many ghost shrimp, a few MTS snails that the puffer and rams done catch and kill.

This is a heavily planted tank with CO2, nutrient additives, and LOTS of algae I am workin on controlling. substrate is a red clay, fluorite

The rams always lay their eggs on a piece of red slate I have in the tank specifically for that purpose.

ok. now then, I am sure that there will be no succesful raising of fry in that 10 gallon tank as long as that puffer is in residence. so what do I do?

My tank situation is like this

the previously stated 10 gallon
a 29 gallon with 6 cory cats, 1 large striped raphael, 1 small spotted raphael, 1 medium angel, 1 small angelm no live plants VERY soft BLACK water (black water due tot he amount of driftwood I keep in the tank, it really brings those angels colors out, it is amazing, I wonder what the rams would look like, that is their natural habitat as well, black water) anyways, and ALOT of snails, probably a thousand or so MTS and pond snails, and two large apple snails. gravel substrate

5 gallon, with a few dozen MTSs andthat is it. it is filtered (HOB filter with bio-wheel) and heated it has a sand substrate

so my main quistions. ok, I can move the puffer into the 5 gallon, let the rams share the 10 with the otos, I can move shrimp if necasary, would rpefer not to. I can also add a cory to replace the shrimp, (I need a decent clean up crew) I can breed rams in the 10 gallon, and move the female to the 29 once the fry hatch (from what Ihave been reading, the female can be a bitagreesive, and deadly, to the fry, whereas the male is the better parent)

The other option is to let them breed as they have been, and move the eggs to the 5 gallon, with or without the male ram

I have been instructed to add hydrogen peroxide to the tank with the eggs to cut back any likely hood of fungus. can I do this to the planted 10 gallon if I raise the eggs/fry in there? will it hurt grown fish?

What should I feed them? getting ahold of actauly fry food is near impossible where I am. daphnia? cant find any, microworms, no clue where to get any. baby brineshrimp....my LFS has never heard of brine shrimp :/ the best I can readily provide is powdered flake food, and maybe powder up some freeze dried brine shrimp, bloodworms, or Ican powder up egg yolk, which is what some people feed guppy fry (high in protein, very fine particles)

thanks

 

[BrianNY]

Welcome to AA Jarred. IMO the first thing you have to do is decide what your priorities are. Do you really want to spawn the rams and raise a batch of fry, or do you merely wish for the best in getting fry in a community tank?

When spawning fish, it's always best to have the tank set up with that purpose in mind. I would isolate the pair in a 10g breeding tank. I like to give the pair a chance at raising the fry. If it doesn't work, I remove the parents after spawning and let the eggs hatch, and the fry go to free swimming in the breeding tank.

Anti-fungals give an added measure of assurance. I prefer formalin since it doesn't discolor the water. As for first foods, frozen baby brine shrimp is always a good option.

HTH

 

[Jarred Darque]

ok, now when you say give the pair of rams their own tank, can I keep in some sort of clean up crew in teh tank? preferably something for algae, thinking maybe a bristlenose pleco?

The pleco could be removed when there are eggs in the tank, and upto the point that they are free swimming

 

[Jchillin]

You can certainly keep one in there but you are only using it for the purpose of breeding the rams and it isn't really necessary.