A Single Ram.

[AndreaC]

Hi. After recently losing one of my rams I am now left with 1 male. He at the time was also poorly but has since recovered and picked up again. Thing is he is the only Ram in the tank and looks lonely. I added a new female mollie today and he has took a shine to her and follows her all over.

Are Rams best kept in groups of 2 or more or can they be an only fish? I feel really sorry for him as he looks lost, where as the other fish have there groups/schools.

If I do get him a pal, does it matter if its another male or should it be a female??

Thanks in advance

 

[fry_lover]

never kept them, but my understanding is that they are not shoaling fish anyway?

 

[annka5]

They're not shoaling fish, but they do interact with each other. However, 2 males will be very likely to fight; particularly since the one you have has laready seen the tank as "his" territory. I'd say get a female or nothing

 

[AndreaC]

Oh ok. If there not shoaling fish I will leave it then. Guess im just use to shoaling fish and then see him on his own. Looks kind of lost on his own lol.

 

[DarkEntity]

Get a female for him and you will see the best from his colours and personallity

 

[bleechme]

Get a female for him and you will see the best from his colours and personallity

Same advice I'd give. Rams are popular because of their colors, You'd be pleased to how Beautiful he can become if you added a female.

 

[Rhiannon]

I have a lone male. He is all by himself. He terrorised my female to death with harassment, nudging and biting so I refuse to give him another wife.

He is doing perfectly fine. He was at his best when I had a dwarf gourami in there with him. They were together all day, but unfortunatly my gourami went to heaven.

 

[newtotropical]

Get a female for him and you will see the best from his colours and personallity

Same advice I'd give. Rams are popular because of their colors, You'd be pleased to how Beautiful he can become if you added a female.

Im with these two!! Shouldnt be on his own....

 

[tmack]

I have a lone male. He is all by himself. He terrorised my female to death with harassment, nudging and biting so I refuse to give him another wife.

He is doing perfectly fine. He was at his best when I had a dwarf gourami in there with him. They were together all day, but unfortunatly my gourami went to heaven.

Hi. From what I've learned in a cichlid forum I just joined, it's a natural thing for the nudging & liplocking to occur between ram pairs. They are testing each other's strength, and the female in a pair is testing the male's strength and fitness as a potential mate. The same can happen between like sexes. This liplocking can be for several seconds, and all 3 in the tank will do it during the day. Supposedly it does no harm, but in larger cichlids can sometimes result in a broken jaw - not good! I have 3 Bolivian rams in my tank at work that I got a little over a week ago and have been going crazy to see if I had a male & female within the three. As it turns out I've had a couple folks in the cichlid forum, with a lot of Bolivian ram experience, tell me from some pics I took that I do have a male & female, so the third one will go onto a community tank. I've heard they can do just fine alone - peaceful fish. I'll find out soon! Here's a picture I took yesterday of 2 of them in a liplock (the sex of the one on the left hasn't been identified yet - I need a better pic of that one). Cute little fish & very interesting to watch.