new to cichlids - stocking question

[UnarmedCrayon]

Hey all, we have a 45 long community tank with an aquaclear 70 on it. Current stock is 7 serpae, 4 peppered cories, five amano shrimp, 1 dwarf gourami, and one electric blue ram male. We definatly feel the ram ( Skeeter) needs a gal, so we put in a requests at our lfs. They called today and said some came in so we are excited to head there.
The stocking question is - they also got in some apistome cacawatis that my wife really likes. ( I know my spelling is horrible, cockatoo cichlids ). Would a pair of these be too much on top of what is in the tank?. Tank is heavily planted with two pieces of drift wood.

Originally my wife was shopping for the cocktoos when she found Skeeter and had to have him

 

[TheCommunityCichlid]

Apistogramma cacatuoides should be fine in that tank with your stock.

 

[UnarmedCrayon]

Thank you for both your prompt answer and your proper spelling. Btw, held off on the apistogrammas for the moment. The ones they had gotten were very young and all female. I did get a girlfriend for our ram though

 

[UnarmedCrayon]

Here is Skeeter showing off for his new lady.

 

[FishBoy185]

Beautiful fish you have there! Nice tank also!

 

[TheCommunityCichlid]

Skeeter is a nice electric blue ram!

 

[bettaowner]

That ram is amazing

 

[UnarmedCrayon]

Thank you all. I certainly did not complain when my wife brought him home. He is usually very bright, but went near neon when the lady entered the tank . I have a fuzzy pic of him waiting by the bag for her too.

 

[kjacks]

How cute .... i miss my lil female ram... had to bring her back

 

[UnarmedCrayon]

Unfortunate news. We lost Lady. The female blue ram I got to befriend Skeeter the electric blue ram. Everything was fine last night, the two have gotten along splendidly. Normal behavior at feeding time this morning, then an hour later when we were having breakfast, we noticed she was on her own, swimming erratically and allowing her self to free fall in the water for seconds at a time. We watched as in the next 4 mins she degraded, sinking and swimming until she lay still on the gravel. I had to push skeeter aside with the net ( as he was hovering over her) to get her out of the tank. It happened so fast we were in shock for a lil bit. I checked water quality immediately, nothing bad except the nirates were up in the 20 ppm range. ( Sunday evening is weekly water change time) Rather dismaying. Brought a water sample to the lfs ( a good small one) to double check my results. He got same resukts, water was good but not perfect, he chalked her death to rams being overly sensitive to water quality. Skeeter, thankfully, is doing just fine though. Any other ideas? For right now, I'm gunna go do my water changes. I don't want to lose anyone else.