What gender are my German blue rams?

Mjmj02 said:

Wow! Thanks for the pictures they are so beautiful!... I have a question. Do either of your males have blue scales on their black circle spot?

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Thanks! Yea I love how interesting they are as well.

So when I first researched rams I found people claiming that the one sure way to tell the male from the female was the solid black side patch on the side. They said males have a side patch that is solid black with no blue scales showing over top, while females have a black spot where the blue can be seen inside (over) the black patch. Unfortunately, I've learned that this is completely untrue.

In actual fact, the black patch can be solid with no blue showing in the black patch, however... that can also change when something causes that same male to lose some of the starkness of the black patch; for instance, stress. Then blue scales will show through.

These two pics are of the exact same male. For a brief period something caused all my fish to become a bit stressed and while the less dominant male became completely colorless, the dominant male's black side patch faded in intensity and blue began to show through. The black color bands and patches are definitely a dominance flag for these guys.

Colin_T said:

Female blue rams that are mature, healthy and in good condition will show a pink belly regardless of if there is a male present.

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The key words here are 'mature' and 'healthy'. Immature females - and fish sold in shops are usually immature - don't have the pink belly, and neither do sick or stressed fish.

I love these rams but my LFS hardly ever get them in. I will be asking if he will keep me a pair after my tank has cycled

ITViking said:

Thanks! Yea I love how interesting they are as well.

So when I first researched rams I found people claiming that the one sure way to tell the male from the female was the solid black side patch on the side. They said males have a side patch that is solid black with no blue scales showing over top, while females have a black spot where the blue can be seen inside (over) the black patch. Unfortunately, I've learned that this is completely untrue.

In actual fact, the black patch can be solid with no blue showing in the black patch, however... that can also change when something causes that same male to lose some of the starkness of the black patch; for instance, stress. Then blue scales will show through.

These two pics are of the exact same male. For a brief period something caused all my fish to become a bit stressed and while the less dominant male became completely colorless, the dominant male's black side patch faded in intensity and blue began to show through. The black color bands and patches are definitely a dominance flag for these guys.

View attachment 123435 View attachment 123436

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Oh thank you for letting me know. That is what I was wondering because the ram I thought was male had those blue scales on his black spot and some people said that only females have them, so it was just really confusing. I really appreciate you putting the time to explain your experience with that and debunking it. Also I cant get over how beautiful your ram is I hope mine colors up like that when they get bigger.

Mjmj02 said:

Also I cant get over how beautiful your ram is I hope mine colors up like that when they get bigger.

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When I brought mine home they were pretty pale. After getting used to the tank they began to get a bit of color, but they really started coloring up more when I began to feed them protein.

Just fed them some blood worms and their colors really popped. Here's the dominant male. The other one almost gets the same colors.

But I think I've still seens some online with even more vibrant orange, so mine probably have a ways to go yet also.

Okay that's good news to me because I have been giving them tons of brine shrimp everyday ahah.