german blue rams

[jrp1588]

I've got a confirmed spawn this time. I moved a 2 males and 2 females into my 29gal breeder and let nature take its course. Within just a couple days a pair formed and laid eggs on a flower pot I put in there for them. The male is currently being highly protective of the eggs, keeping even the female away. I don' really expect survivors from the first spawn, but anyway, here's a picture.

[FishCrazyBenBOMB]

That's great. You didn't do anything to encourage spawning at all? And how do you tell if they are paired?

[jrp1588]

I turned up the temperate a bit...other than that I just let them do their thing

[FishCrazyBenBOMB]

I see, awesome hopefully after my ram gets all ich free I will try to encourage some spawning with mine.

[Zagz]

Congratulations! Are you going to leave the eggs in and see if the parents will rear them?

[jrp1588]

yeah, I like to give my fish a few tries at rearing their young. If they continue to fail then I'll pull them

[Zagz]

I have success until the wrigglers become free swimming fry. Then is when my rams eat them. I hope you have better luck than I do.

[jrp1588]

well, I think if I get wigglers I may pull the parents anyway. I've done the math and theoretically breeding these guys can be pretty profitable. I've got around 250 eggs right now. Assuming I get a 50% survival rate I'll still have 100 or so. I bought 6 on aquabid for $40 shipped. I think the guy used priority mail, so let's assume a $10 shipping and $30 for fish. With 100 fish I could make 16.67 of these shipments or $500. Not too shabby.

[Zagz]

Yes they can be very profitable. I wish you the best of luck! Keep us updated please.

[jrp1588]

yeah, I may offer up a few shipments to my friends here at AA for a reduced price as well. but yeah, best not to get ahead of myself. Have to raise them first. haha

[bs6749]

Originally Posted by jrp1588

well, I think if I get wigglers I may pull the parents anyway. I've done the math and theoretically breeding these guys can be pretty profitable. I've got around 250 eggs right now. Assuming I get a 50% survival rate I'll still have 100 or so. I bought 6 on aquabid for $40 shipped. I think the guy used priority mail, so let's assume a $10 shipping and $30 for fish. With 100 fish I could make 16.67 of these shipments or $500. Not too shabby.

Congrats on the spawn!

My count was 239 (used Paint and erased as I counted). You will be very lucky to get 100 rams out of that batch that are good enough to sell. Remember, just because they survive doen't mean that you should sell them. You will need to comb over the rams for any obvious defects such as retardation, mishaped spines, poor finnage, fins that are too long/short, poor gill plates, multiple eyes/sets of fins, and others for example. Granted, there will probably be very few that need to be culled for obvious defects (I'd say under 5%) but you will also want to cull the slowest growing 10-15% along with the fastest growing 10-15%. You want the brood to have similar growth rates. So, with 100 free swimmers, you will be down to 65-75 that you could actually sell. Now, keep in mind that if you don't give the fry proper food and 4-5 feedings/day those numbers will be much higher. You will also need to spend a decent amount of time doing water changes and tank maintenance. You will also be lucky to make $5 per ram after you figure in shipping supplies like bags, rubber bands, Bag-Buddies, heat packs, styrofoam insulation, gas to take the package to the PO (unless you opt to have them picked up), etc. You should also keep in mind that quality of the parents is something to consider when pricing the rams. I remember seeing the rams that you got (at least I think it was your rams) when you first posted pics of them and I thought that there were at least 2 culls in the group (no offense meant). IMO if the fry are from either of those fish then you won't be able to get nearly as much for them, KWIM?

[jrp1588]

I didn't realize I had what were considered low quality stock. I thought they looked nice, but i guess that's more of a subjective rating.


That's one of my males, most of them I have look basically the same.

Either way, the entire spawn is gone, could have been the rams that ate them...could have been the snails.

[FishCrazyBenBOMB]

Well that sucks, I guess you'll have to wait till the next batch and pull the eggs.

[Zagz]

Certainly not all fish aquarists would be concerned that your fish were of low quality, if indeed they are. I certainly would not know the difference. The market will still be excellent for selling them. Sorry the eggs were eaten, good luck with the next spawn and there will be a next spawn.

[bs6749]

That's not one of low quality, he actually looks really nice. Is that the only pic you have posted? Maybe it was someone else, I'm gonna search through some threads right now......

My point was that quality is also an important factor to consider when selling fish. Take my discus for example. I had a nice alenquer and a really nice carnation snakeskin pair off recently. If they had babies, which I believe they may soon, they will most likely be ugly and not worth much. I'd be lucky to get $10 each for a 2" fish (IMO) rather than $15 or so from something like a 2" blue diamond, which is at the low end of the price range for discus. Maybe that explains my point a little better?

[Zagz]

Very true what you are saying. My point is there a lot of aquarists that are not looking for the top quality fish. Many newbies to the hobby for example. When I first started keeping discus I didn't know what a "good" discus was. I learned through experience. We are on the same page you and I, I was just pointing out there are many aquarists that are more interested in having the fish than having the best of the fish.

[jrp1588]

I have a few other pics posted, most are bad pictures though...I'm not much of a photographer really. haha. Granted that's not the ram that just spawned. The one that just spawned is a standard fin, but the coloration and pattern are about the same. Good to know I have good stock after all. It made me a little sad when I thought my fish were bad quality. haha

[bs6749]

It looks really nice to me. The one I was thinking of was a runt and it was deformed from what the picture showed, or as I saw it. I think it was a female too if my memory is correct.

[jrp1588]

http://www.aquariumadvice.com/forums...-107817-4.html
This thread has a lot of pictures of my rams. Would you mind pointing out which one?

[bs6749]

Originally Posted by jrp1588

http://www.aquariumadvice.com/forums...-107817-4.html
This thread has a lot of pictures of my rams. Would you mind pointing out which one?

Okay, those are the ones I remember seeing. Now, don't take offense to this but this is what I think about a couple of the rams.

This male below has nice finnage and decent color. However, what would prevent me from using this fish as a breeder would be how "beaky" (think of an angel's mouth) it is and how far forward the eyes are towards it's "nose area". Look at the front of the fish near the mouth. You may be able to notice a rough trasition from the mouth to the start of the dorsal fin. Ideally, a breeder would have excellent shape as well as finnage and it's the shape that disqualifies it from being considered as a breeder IMO. Also, it's the genetic factors of shape and not environmental ones that prevent it from being a useable breeder. You can have a stunted fish because of a lack of food for example, but it may still have good genes that would produce nice quality fish. But on the other hand, if the fish is already misformed due to it's genes, then those are genes ones that shouldn't be passed on to any future generations. If I would have raised this fish it would have been culled by me.




Next, the fish below appears to be a giant in the picture. I don't know if the angle of the photo has much to do with it but it appears that the fish has poor shape and something isn't quite right about the mouth area once again. I don't know if the eye is oversized or what but the fish just doesn't look right proportionally. This would be the second, and probably last cull of the GBR's that you have IMO. The others appear to have nice color, finnage, size, and shape and would be okay breeding stock IMO.