Please Help Sex My New Rams :)

[Steven A]

I just wanted to know if any one could help me sex my two new rams.
I bought them yesterday .

Ram 1 - Has much more colour.
Ram 2 - Has Less colour.

Thank you guys .

 

[Steven A]

I just did a bit of research myself and it appears Ram1 (bottom pick) is the female as it has a slight red belly and has the black spot in the middle of its body.

So that means the top image is a male (Ram2)
So that means the bottom image is a female (Ram1)

Please help .

 

[Steven A]

The ram from the bottom image has the blue specs around the black markings as well so I think that it is a female. The other one looks a bit scared and is showing bars on his body, I also saw the female ram chase him. Why is she attacking the other one.
The other ram is now resting behind the plants.

So if I have correctly sexed them the female is battering the male :?

 

[Tiffi]

German Blue Rams are sometimes very difficult to sex (Iguess you know that), especially if they don't show their full color intensity.

The pictures are much to blurry to be able to sex them, so you can only do that yourself. You know the "marks" they should show or not show as male and female and I guess you have sexed them right.

That the female hunts down the male might be, because they didn't pair up and it's hard to say if they ever will . My pair swam together from the first day I bought them (guess I got lucky), but normally it's difficult to find a pair. Be careful, that the female doesn't stress the male too much and kills him! You can better bring the male back then and get another one to try if they will pair up. Look for the most intensely colored one, I had the experience that that helps.

Good luck!

 

[Jchillin]

Look carefully at the black spot on the body. A female's spot will show blue dots within it.

 

[DepotFish]

Tiny pics, adorable fish. I'm not a ram person myself but I'd take them both for females. I wonder if you can tell rams by vent shape, because the top one looks to have the vent shape of a female goldfish. I don't know if that would be the same in rams though.

 

[Wolfspyder]

You might have two males, hard to tell from the pics. From my experience with them, my females all have had a pinkish hue to their bellies(except my current female whose coloration is a bit different with a all white body instead of yellowish, I think she might be kind of an albino or something, but I saw her lay eggs so I know it is a she). My males have had longer front lower fins(not sure the correct term for those) and their bodies were 'thinner' when looking at them from the side, sort of like a snow cone shape where the females were more rounded before the tail, hard to explain and I just recently lost my fish pics to a bad hard drive. Like what was mentioned above, the large spot was solid black with my males and you could see flecks of blue with the females.

The coloration of them change too, you will see them getting darker black and almost faded to nothing(depending on their moods/feeding time), usually my dominant ones had the dark colors, the faded ones would get picked on by the others. I had 4 in a tank at one time(I really hate ich), 1 male and 3 females, the female with the least color got picked on by the 3 others and then the other two females would sort of change in the pecking order depending on who had eggs. The male sort of alternated between the two and never 'paired' up with one and stayed with her.

From my other experiences the males are usually the dominant ones in the tank. Any new male I put in with a female(s) might get chased for a day, but as soon as he was fine with his new tank he became the aggressor and would harass/show off for the female(s). My current rams I had to seperate because of the male's constant harassing of the female and noticed some fin damage from his pecking.

I really like rams as a whole, they have always been very curious of the going ons in the tank, and whenever my hand or arm is in there cleaning or moving things they are there pecking at it. I hope you did get a pair and can see their behaviour when eggs are involved. I've yet to have any hatch though, usually would get eaten or fungus formed. Best of luck to ya!

 

[talloulou]

From what I understand it can sometimes be almost impossible to sex some rams until they are actually breeding. I use to have two and I assumed they were a male/female pair due to coloration. However after the male (darker, more vibrant colors, huge mohawk) died the other one has now become very male looking. My remaining ram use to be very pale in comparison to the other and the mohawk appeared shorter and less intense however now that this ram is in the tank alone it's mohawk looks huge and it's colors have gotten very intense. So now I am left thinking that perhaps I had two males and one just kept his colors bland and mohawk down in a form of submission? They did swim together often and they did kiss/fight occasionally. So now I am back to having no idea if my ram is male/female and wouldn't even know how to begin finding a new mate aside from buying a bunch and letting them pair themselves up. Since I don't have a tank for that right now I am holding off.

 

[Jchillin]

talloulou...maybe the tetra in the background of pic 2 knows.

I've attached the profile of the German Blue Ram which includes pics of a definite pair. Please notice the black spot with blue specks. Also, the mohawks are very similar.

http://www.aquariumadvice.com/viewtopic.php?t=60871

 

[Wolfspyder]

From what I understand it can sometimes be almost impossible to sex some rams until they are actually breeding. I use to have two and I assumed they were a male/female pair due to coloration. However after the male (darker, more vibrant colors, huge mohawk) died the other one has now become very male looking. My remaining ram use to be very pale in comparison to the other and the mohawk appeared shorter and less intense however now that this ram is in the tank alone it's mohawk looks huge and it's colors have gotten very intense. So now I am left thinking that perhaps I had two males and one just kept his colors bland and mohawk down in a form of submission? They did swim together often and they did kiss/fight occasionally. So now I am back to having no idea if my ram is male/female and wouldn't even know how to begin finding a new mate aside from buying a bunch and letting them pair themselves up. Since I don't have a tank for that right now I am holding off.

I think you had two females. When the females I had battled they did the lock lips thing and square off like that. They would swim backwards from each other a little, then their tails would go up and then the charge and lip lock for a second or so. Was interesting to watch. Plus, the body shape(more rounded body) and it looks like pinkish hue to the bellies. The mohawk isn't always an idicator for male, my females have had so extended fins like my males have had. I've heard from a fish store employee that males can have the pink bellies too, but I've not seen that with my friends rams or my own.

The coloration change you noted(darker more intense) was probably due to the dominant female being gone.
When I had a ram alone in a tank except for a couple of ottos she really lost all her coloring until feeding time, then after awhile she would dull down again. I added a male ram and she colored up right away while investigating the bag he was in, after I released him into the tank she was the more dominant one(chase him around a bit and swim in front of him) and had very dark coloration. The next day after I got home from work I found her hiding under the filter outflow looking very faded and the male was very dark in color. He would harass constantly and I had to seperate them, not all pairings are meant to be I guess
She went back to being dull color until feedings until I added some other fish. I added some tetras and she keeps her coloration darker all the time now.

Also, one thing I've noticed lately at the shops near me is they tend to get in a batch of rams and, to my eye, look to be either all male or all female, rarely do I see a mix in the same batch. Not sure if this is how other shops tend to get their stock in too or not.

 

[talloulou]

I think you might be right....because they both had some blue specs around their black spot. Also they both had the pinkish bellies and they were very similar in size. So I will try to keep my eye out for a male. We don't get the rams available too often locally. Here is a pic of my remaining ram...you can see the blue specs in the black dot......


Jchillin would you agree she is a female??

 

[talloulou]

Now here is a pic of the one that died.....This one I really thought was a male. You can see the blue specs around the black spot but not really IN the spot.......and yet the belly is pink and this fish was no smaller or bigger then the remaining one.

Sorry for all the pics....it's just that it's an interesting topic and if I can figure the sexing thing out then maybe I can replace the one I lost.

 

[talloulou]

One interesting difference between the fish that is very noticable in all pictures is the black bar in front. On the one fish the black bar is completely unbroken right through the eye while on the other one the black bar never runs through the eye. I have never heard of this difference used when it comes to sexing though.

 

[Jchillin]

Man has this thread been hijacked...my apologies but sexing is a good topic.

talloulou...I think both pics are female, especially the first one. In regard to the stripe through the eye...I've never actually seen that as a tell tale sign. After reading your post, I ran off to check mine out (and snap some pics while I was at it) just to be sure.

 

[talloulou]

Steven_Askham - please forgive my hijacking...... your post just got me rethinking about my rams. For what it's worth I personally would love for people to post more pics of their male/female pairs so we can all visually get this sexing thing down pat.

 

[aquakev]

here is my male. notice the steep forehead, no blue spots on the black dot, extra long pelvic fins, and the 2nd spine on the dorsal ridge is extra long.

 

[aquakev]

Here is my female, notice the more gently sloping forehead, read belly, blue spots on the black dot on her side, shorter more stubby pelvic fins, and a smaller spike on her dorsal ridge.

You can also see that the two have different body shapes, with the male having more dramatic curves from side view and the female has more gradual tapering curves.

Hope this can provide some help so you can see what people are talking about with a definitively sexed pair.

 

[aquakev]

for good mesure. Now you can compare them side by side.(second pic)

and the first pic is the proof. In the crevice that the male is guarding is wrigglers(the are the small off white pile directly uner his head) that they moved there from across the tank by mouth. It was awsome.

 

[Steven A]

Its fine lol , I am going to buy 2 more rams and then hopefully they can pair of themselves I think the tank is big enough to have a breeding pair plus others.
I will try to post images later.

 

[Steven A]

I went to the lfs and bought two more rams. These look better than my original two as they have very long fins. I asked the guy at the lfs to get me a male and a female and he said that they are very hard to sex especially due to the fact they have extra long fins. So I decided to try.
I asked for the one which I thought to be male due to the fact he did not have blue in the black bit and he was the most dominant. I then purchased another one that had blue bits in the black spot. None of them there had the red belly. But they had only just got them in about 2 hours before I got there so they would of been stressed and probs not conditioned. So I took them two guys.
I added them into my tank and two hit it of straight away.
One of my new ones and one of the old ones started chasing each other. There was no aggression really I didnt think and then one of the old ones started to shake its head at a new one. They have also been close today, but occasional the most dominant one (new male) will get bit to rough and then the old one will swim away. But things are looking good.

My two new ones fins are a bit tatty so how can I get the to grow back?
They are with my discus so perfect water, I am trying to do water changes a week now to speed up the discus growth a.k.a. spawn lol
They get fed two times a day, meat on morning flake on night.

Thanks for help every one.