2 Male Blue Rams

[Murpheus]

I've had 2 Male Blue rams for a couple of months now with no problems bar the odd chase, but now the slightly larger one is giving the other a pretty hard time almost constantly. They were sold to me as a M/F pair when I myself was a bit greener around the gills regarding rams.

I've just had an outbreak of whitespot which I've used the meds for & it's been symptom free for a couple of days now. Could the bullying be anything to do with this?

I'd hate to lose one of them because they are both beautiful fish so, I was thinking....Would it be an idea to add a few females to the tank, if so how many, or would this be a recipe for disaster?

The aquarium is a Fluval 1200 Deep 50Gal(ish) & the other stock ATM is

1 X L134 Leopard Frog Pleco
4 X Corydoras Schwartzis
3 X Zebra Loaches
5 X Zebra Danios

All water parameters are fine.

Good advice very much appreciated

Cheers

Murph

Edit: My cameras pretty crap, but here's a pic of 1 of the fellas...

 

[dirtydogg]

got to love rams, What are the dimensions of the tank? I would try a re-arrarange creating at least two distinct spots for the rams. Personally if I was trying to keep both males I would not get females because if they pair off then it'll be an all out war.

 

[rockerBOO]

The stress from Ich could cause them to fight more often.

 

[Rhiannon]

Well, I have just added 2 blue rams to my tank (they are my only rams), 1 boy and 1 girl.

The male is so aggressive towards the female, its quite scary actually.

If she goes near the food, he will chase her away, sometimes he just chases her and pushes her with his nose, and he is mean to the guppies I have in my tank too.

The other day he was so mean to her that she went completly grey and lost her colour due to fright.

I thought they were supposed to be peaceful cichlids.

As for adding your females to the tank, the guy at the LFS said that the males will fight more if they have females to compete over, and shouldnt fight anywhere near us much is the tank is female - free.

Goodluck.

 

[paul-discus]

Well, I have just added 2 blue rams to my tank (they are my only rams), 1 boy and 1 girl.

The male is so aggressive towards the female, its quite scary actually.

If she goes near the food, he will chase her away, sometimes he just chases her and pushes her with his nose, and he is mean to the guppies I have in my tank too.

The other day he was so mean to her that she went completly grey and lost her colour due to fright.

I thought they were supposed to be peaceful cichlids.

As for adding your females to the tank, the guy at the LFS said that the males will fight more if they have females to compete over, and shouldnt fight anywhere near us much is the tank is female - free.

Goodluck.

Hi Murph,
Rams are peaceful fish but they have to have their own territory and in a 50 gallon tank i would personally just have the one pair. Can't you take a male back to the shop and swop it for a female seeing as how they told you the 2 males were apair in the first place, you really will have no problems then.

 

[Murpheus]

Thanks Paul.

Looks like I'm going to have to re-home one of them.

Unfortunately my none of my local LFS have had blue rams in since I got these two.

They were part of a batch that were tank-bred locally & up til now have been doing really well.

It looks like they'd sorted their differences since I cleared the whitespot, but between yesterday & today the 'bullying' gotten much worse & the smaller male is getting very stressed.

 

[Murpheus]

Sorry to bump an old thread, but I finally managed to swap one of my males for a female a few days ago.

She's about half the size that he is, was the only one left in the LFS and although she looked quite fragile I decided to risk it. Since I've introduced her theres been no agression from the male at all, but today I noticed she's having the odd go at him!

Anytime he goes anywhere near her she's chasing him away. He dosn't seem at all stressed by this. he just swims off for a bit & then goes back for more! lol

Just wondering is this normal behaviour or something I need to keep an eye on?

Thanks

Murph