Spawning Rams

[DragonFish71]

My boyfriend and I have a pair of Gold rams and a pair of Blue rams in our 29G community tank. Last night when we came home from running around we found that the Golds have spawned on the huge resin rock that is the centerpiece for the tank and the Blues are getting ready to spawn on the other end of the same rock. Being that we both enjoy our Rams, this thrilled us to no end. We even took pictures of the Golds and the eggs. Today is my regular day to clean that tank. (Since we now have 6 tanks and one fish bowl, I made myself a cleaning schedule)

My questions are:
A: will my keeping to my cleaning schedule disturb the Blues to the point that they won't spawn

B: will keeping to my cleaning schedule make the already spawned Golds abandon/eat their eggs.

I know that with some egg laying fish any disturbance can cause them to not spawn or destroy the eggs.

I know it takes about 3 or so days for the eggs to hatch, and that is a whole other set of problems since we have no where to raise the fry. So that brings up my next question.

Can the fry be placed in a net breeding trap in the same tank?

Any ideas on these questions is greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

 

[thatmagicguy]

I would skip any dramatic cleaning or maintenance if you want to save the young. If you are going to do a water change then siphon water off the top without causing alot of disturbance and siphon water back into the tank slowly without alot of disturbance as well. If it were me I would skip this altogether.

If they do not eat the eggs, if the eggs are fertile, then they will hatch in 3-4 days depending on the tank temperature. Once they hatch they will not start swimming for another 4-5 or even 6 days, again, depending on tank temperature.

If you do not have any other tank to raise fry in, or you are not versed in providing food for fry then I would leave them with the parents. After the fry are free swimming they will slowly get eaten off by other fish in the tank. The parents, if they are good ones, will defend the young as best they can.

You could net out some and put them in a breeder net hung in the tank. I'm not so sure why you would do that though, as you would still need to feed them and you would do better to buy a small glass tank of 5 gallons and move fry into that. I described in another thread how I would siphon out babies before they became free swimming, thereby getting most out and having the best chance at raising a good number of them.

Good luck no matter what direction you go. Bill

 

[DragonFish71]

Thank you for your input.


I haven't seen any "white" eggs. Through research I have found that white eggs mean they're dead. I did just go to my LFS and they had hikari first bites fry food. They suggested mixing it with tank water and using a dropper to feed them. I'm going to do what I can to try and raise them. I thought about setting up a 5G for them, but I'm running out of horizontal surfaces with all the tanks. I did read your other thread after I had posted this. It did give me a few ideas and of course I've been researching every free minute I have. The Blues are pretty close to spawning too. I think by time we wake up tomorrow we might be "grandparents" to more eggs.