The Care and Feeding of Baby Rams

[HeatherW]

OK, so now I have ram eggs (German Blue Rams).

I know they take 40 - 48 hours to hatch and that the parents should protect them. so far so good. dad is doing a great job keep watch over them and mom is hanging close by.

so i read when they hatch I am suppose to feed them newly hatched brine worms. Ummm... I don't have those. I have frozen brine worms. what do I feed? for the molly babies I have had I was told to grind up the flakes really small and feed them that. what am I supposed to do for these guys? can I do the same thing - really ground up flakes? and can i just drop the food in there or do I need to do anything special to make sure they get some?

 

[jetajockey]

You can try ground up flakes, they are very tiny. baby brine shrimp is too small for newborn fry. Boiled egg yolk seems to work for some also.

I like using a mixture of green water and vinegar eels along with java moss.

 

[HeatherW]

You can try ground up flakes, they are very tiny. baby brine shrimp is too small for newborn fry. Boiled egg yolk seems to work for some also.

I like using a mixture of green water and vinegar eels along with java moss.

I don't know what "green water" or "vinegar eels" are... I do have a small tile that has java moss growing on it in the tank... it is on the opposite side of the eggs in the 90 gallon.

if i do the boiled egg yolk do i just cook the yolk and then drop it in there or do I need to get one of those things so I can squirt it down to where they are?

 

[jetajockey]

Green water is a form of algae, there are a few methods of creating it, a google search should turn up quite a bit on it. Vinegar eels are a cultured nematode like microworms but smaller, they take a few weeks to get going so that won't help you much now.

I'm not really a fan of using boiled egg yolk because it makes a mess in the tank, but you basically want to dab some into a container of water and then use a pipette to suck it up and dose it into the tank near the fry.

As far as parenting goes, my rams were always terrible at it. They'd either eat the eggs at some point or they'd eat the fry a few days after they were free swimming. I tried it with 4 or 5 different pairs and gave up on letting them 'get it right' after that.

 

[HeatherW]

i hope mine are good parents. so far so good... they just need to not eat those little eggs for another day...

not sure what to do about the feeding... I guess I can try the flakes and the egg yolk. my frozen brine shrimp seems too big for the babies. from what I have seen they are itty bitty

 

[bs6749]

Fish food live cultures.

Purchase a culture or two of microworms. Get 2-3 disposable Gladware containers, the size that would fit a sandwich. Get some cornmeal and cook it by placing it in boiling water. Place some into each container so that you have about a half an inch of mixture, which you want to be runny, but not too thin and watery. You can add more water if needed and stir it in. I've found that yeast is not needed. After it has cooled to room temperature, place some of the culture in each container and spread it out over the surface of the cornmeal. Poke holes into the lids with a knife to get air into the containers. Place the lids on top of the containers, but do not lock them into place. Gently lay the lid on top. Store the cultures in a warm place and you will have worms in no time.

You don't need to feed the fry until they go free swimming, which will be 4-5 days after they hatch. You have about 40 hours more until they hatch. I suggest ordering the mircoworms now and you will be fine. You can harvest them with a knife and dip the knife into the tank to clean it of worms. I highly recommend growing the fry out in a 10g tank with about half of the tank filled with water. This is to keep the food to water concentration high so the fry don't spend energy looking for food.

Boiled egg yolk will also work. Take some of the yolk (a pea sized amount) and put it into a glass. Then fill the glass halfway with water and stir the yolk with a fork to break it apart into fine particles. Spot feed with a turkey baster. Egg yolk is terrible for the water and ram fry are EXTREMELY sensitive to any nitrates, so you will need to change water every day, or twice if possible. I'd do 50-75% each time.

 

[HeatherW]

weel the eggs are gone now. either they ate them or they are holding them in their mouth. they were there at 1pm and gone by 430pm. i didn't see what happened, but they are all gone and the parents are swimming around together.

maybe next time...