A short story long

[lunch]

After cycling my 90ltr with 10 neons we decided on some harlequin rasbora and 2 dwarf gourami as the center piece, the male dg died from wounds (in a hospital tank) sustained from attacks from the female, once he was gone she turned her aggression to the harlequins which i wasnt going to put up with, as soon as i had the time she went back to where she came from (a week after bringing her home) and i walked out of the 'not so local' lfs with a blue ram and 3 purple harlequin rasbora, knowing nothing about ram keeping, taking the tank to 10 neons, 8 harlequins and what i thought was a female ram, a few days later i thought id bring home a male ram to keep her company, i found out pretty quick that i had two males in the tank and the original male wasnt happy at all and was actually a gold ram (the lfs had "german blue ram" written on the tank) The new male went into a hospital tank while the gf and i decided what to do, not happy with the new male stuck in the hospital tank because of my error in sexing and not wanting to take him back.
I did a bit of research and everything i read told me not to do what i was thinking about doing cos it wouldnt work but i decided to take the gamble anyway, the new male went into my 290ltr and we decided to get a female for the ram in the 90ltr, once again he wasnt having it so she went into the 290ltr with the other ram, after about 45 minutes of not knowing each other existed, he spotted her and was smitten straight away, showing off his dancing skills for her at every opportunity only for her to continue to play hard to get, a little over 2 weeks later, he doesnt dance as much but they have definitely taken over the tank, whats odd about it is my 290ltr is a 24.5'c goldfish tank with 2 orandas, 2 fancies, a bn pleco, 6 wcmm and 6 zebras and the rams are about the size of the pectoral fins on the orandas.
Everytime i sit in front of the tank he swims up right in front of my face ( i like to think hes saying hi )and the much bigger fish swimming past them doesnt bother them at all.
Everything i have read says rams should only b kept by experienced-advanced aquarists, i started my first tank on New Year's Eve last year and while ive done a lot of reading and had to deal with a few issues, id hardly class myself as anything more than a rookie.. Ive not done anything special, just a stable tank i guess..
I feel for any1 that has trouble keeping rams cos they are great little fish with heaps of personality.

 

[lunch]

Odin (the terrible)
Durin (the lover) on the left
Freya (the denier) on the right
Some of the tank mates



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[coralbandit]

I wish you continued success!
Your pair with the goldies look almost ready to lay eggs!
The first ram is a GBR just not as seriously colored,definatley not a gold ram.

 

[lunch]

Oh ok, so all are blue.
That'd be interesting if she was full of eggs though i think it might just be the photo, her body doesnt really look like id expect it to look if she was, that being said i honestly wouldnt know..

 

[RackinRocky]

They say Rams are shy, but I've had two that were anything but! And yes, they will boss around just about any fish if they have the mind to.Depends on the individual fish's temperament. I love them, but have never been able to keep one alive over about 4-5 months. They are very prone to disease. I get very attached to them, only for them to die. So I'm not getting any more, but I still really admire them.

 

[lunch]

Yeah i totally agree, i bought a couple of little fake cave thingys thinking they'd spend most of their time in them but nope, front and center 80% of the time.. Hopefully I'll have mine longer than 4 months as im already so attached to them..
Is it just me or do they get darker and lighter depending on what theyre doing, eg: when he decides to chase her he gets really dark but when theyre on different sides of the tank he looks to be lighter.

 

[PNWaquarist]

Rams and goldfish aren't temperature-compatible. What is the temp of that tank?


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[lunch]

24.5'c and yeah thats what i read so to begin with it was only ment to be for 1 night but i didnt want to take him back and if u read my story, u know how i ended up with 2 in there, like i said, 2 weeks in and all is well, i know its still early days so im not getting too far ahead of myself but so far so good..

 

[PNWaquarist]

Your luck is likely going to run out soon. Rams live in relatively shallow ponds in Colombia and Venezuela. Not surprisingly, these ponds are warm year-round. Rams also have relatively fragile immune systems that are temperature-sensitive. It's generally accepted that 80 F (26.7 C) is the lowest temp at which they should be kept. The breeder from which I purchase mine claims that 82-84 F (27.8-28.9 C) is optimal. That may not sound like a big difference, but it is.

I'll give you an idea of how sensitive Rams are to disease. I purchased a pair from a very reputable breeder who specializes in rams five months ago. I acclimated them to my tank for an hour and a half before introduction. I kept the lights off for a day and a half. My tank is heavily planted and has multiple bogwood caves. Tankmates are tetras and corys, both very ram-friendly. The lighting is barely intense enough to grow Java Fern. The water is almost optimal for rams: very soft (2.5 dGH), slightly acidic (pH 6.8), and is a steady 81-82 F. I do 2-3 20% water changes per week to keep my nitrate in the 10-15 ppm range. I feed only high-quality food: New Life Spectrum flakes and Thera-A pellets, Hikari carnivore pellets, Hikari frozen bloodworms, as well as occasional de-shelled peas. The only fish that I've introduced since introducing the rams were a few Cardinal Tetras that were first quarantined and monitored for disease for a full seven weeks. So I've done everything that I possibly can to make my tank ram-friendly. Yet, last weekend, my female ram came down with an apparent gill parasite. (Thankfully, I caught it early enough that a dose of PraziPro was able to handle it.)

It's best to set up a tank around a pair of rams and add tank mates that will tolerate their conditions, not the other way around.

 

[lunch]

You're probably right but, i don't know nearly as much as you obviously know about rams, if and when my Frankenstein tank fails, I'll let you know so you can say "i told you so!" but while they seem to be happy and healthy, I'm happy too.
I acclimated my 2nd male to 3 tanks in about an hour and a half, the female to 2 tanks in about an hour and the lights went on about 20 mins after they went in, both my tanks get fed brine shrimp 2-3 times a week and peas 1ce every 3 weeks or so and the rest of the time i jump between Hikari brand wafers and nutrafin flakes ( which they push through the goldies to get at) Tropical green algae wafers and Hikari Lionhead for the wen on my orandas. I do between 20-50% wc every saturday even though my NO3 is rarely more than 5ppm, my ph stays stable just above 6.5 ( which i have been thinking about raising) I keep the GH at 10 and the KH at 7 on my API test kit and i add a vitamin c powder with every wc

Just on a curious note, if you did everything you needed to do to make everything perfect for your rams and 1 still got a gill parasite, what hope is there for anyone who hopes to keep them.? Maybe i should just give up now huh..

 

[PNWaquarist]

Parasites and pathogens exist in low levels in most tanks. Most of the time, their immune systems can fight it off. Sometimes, they get stressed and their immune systems can't. Rams get stressed easily. They're not easy fish to keep, but that doesn't mean that they're not worth trying IF you make an effort to provide them with conditions that are conducive to their long-term health.

I'm not interested in saying "I told you so." I'm interested in the health of your fish, which will likely to go downhill if you don't raise the temperature of that tank.


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[RackinRocky]

+1 DEFINITELY get the temp up to at least 80 or you will have problems for certain.