German blue rams... how many is many?

[bowsNrams]

Okay I bought my first gbr's last week and I have read some mixEd reviews. Some people say you should only have one ram per 20 gallons of water and others say it does not matter. I have 6 in my 60 gallon tank. Is it too many or will it be okay?

 

[gman42]

im not an expert on them, but that seems okay, wats ur male to female ratio, and what kind of filters are you running?

 

[FishN00b83]

They are very unpredictable. I had 4 in my 40b at one point and the one male terrorized the entire tank. He rammed 2 females to death and picked on the other for a while. He eventually died and now I'm left with the single female. it really depends on the individual fish. I now how 3 apistos (2 females and 1 male), and the female GBR and everything is going great. I am going to pick up 2 more GBRs the next time my LFS has em (hopefully this week) and see what happens.

From my experience the females don't really care what's going on (unless they are guarding eggs. Then you really need to make sure they have the 5g of space), it's the males that go crazy especially when a female is ready to mate (her stomach will turn red).

You really just need to watch them and see how they interact with each other. Some GBRs mix well, and some just try to control the whole tank.

 

[bowsNrams]

Thanks for your thoughts. I have a penguin 350 hob filter on my tank. And as far as the female to male ratio, i haven't a clue. Only a few of them are territorial, but only with other German blue rams, they don't really bother the other fish. I was thinking of keeping an eye on them for a while, then moving one to my 20 gallon, and taking the 2 most aggressive back to the store. Then each fish would have 20 gallons to live in. not sure what I will do though. I guess it just depends on how their temperaments pan out.

 

[Gillie]

I had 3 pairs in a 55 and they divided the tank into 3rds as territory. They all got along great and even spawned many, many, many times.

 

[bowsNrams]

Well, I have lost four of my six Rams in the last few days and the two left seem to be doing well. I have checked my water parameters and everything checks out okay. Ammonia 0ppm, Nitrites 0ppm, Nitrates about 5-10ppm (I have several plants in the tank), my pH is about 8.2, maybe thats whats killing them. ( I have had a high pH since my tanks were set up. Everyone tells me most fish will adjust to high pH & what affects them is when the pH is always changing. So I have opted not to do anything to fix the pH problem.... Okay well I did once, I bought ph down and sent my small tank into a cloud of haze/fog for about 3-4 days.)

I will be exchanging the Rams for some rosy barbs, I hear they are hardy little fellas. I was unsure about the Rams, most of what I read before I got them said they were hard to keep. And most of mine were not as brightly colored when I got them as what I have seen in all the pictures online. I feel horrible that they all died.

 

[sniperfreak]

my pH is about 8.2, maybe thats whats killing them. ( I have had a high pH since my tanks were set up. Everyone tells me most fish will adjust to high pH & what affects them is when the pH is always changing. So I have opted not to do anything to fix the pH problem.... Okay well I did once, I bought ph down and sent my small tank into a cloud of haze/fog for about 3-4 days.)

from my own experience, if you need to adjust your pH down, I just add peat to my filters...it will gradually add trace elements, tannins and humic acids to the water that will both soften it and reduce the pH. Plus, once established, it does a very good job of buffering the water to neutral or slightly acidic, perfect for rams and other South American fishes...that's how I finally got my Bolivians to spawn.