Aggressive Ram

[sketchy]

Alright guys, I'm hoping that some-one can help me.

In my tank I have a Golden Ram. I originally bought 3, so that it wouldn't be lonely. At the time I also had 6 Danios. Anyway, one of the rams seems overly aggressive towards other fish, and you catch him fin-nipping, and generally horrassing other fish in the tank - especially slower moving ones, although he has been known to attack the Danios.

Anyway, the two other Rams died after several days. My water seemed fine, all readings (apart from nitrate) were at 0. I put it down to bullying, as neither of the other two had really been eating, and if they had tried to, the other ram would chase them back into one of their hiding spots.

Over the space of a few months, the Danios have been dropping off one by one as well. Only one of them was down to poor water quality, as I was away from home for a while. However, aren't the Danio's supposed to be more resistant to poor water quality than Rams? Anyway, the last Danio died the other day from an infected gill. This is how they have all gone. It usually comes on quite suddenly, and there doesn't appear to be a link between that and the most recent water change (i.e. it can happen even when I've been particularly good with changing the water). The only thing I can think of is that I've seen this Ram nipping them on several occasions.

Anyway, untill this morning, he was the only fish in the mid to upper part of the tank, sharing it only with two featherfin cats. The problem I was having was getting him to eat. Despite being a bully, he's very timid, and often won't come out into the open all on his own. I tried flake, bloodworm and sinking pellets. Occasionally he would go for an algae wafer or similar placed on the bottom of the tank after the lights hahve gone off, but the catfish usually beat him to it!

So this morning I went to the shop and bought two Bolovian Rams, and introduced them to the tank. The light has been off since they were introduced, and probably will be untill tomorrow morning, so that they don't get too stressed, and have a chance to explore the tank.

Anyway, the original Ram is being a lot braver, and is chasing the other two around the tank, one considerably more than the other. My concern is that these new fish may have the same fate as those before them.

Does any-one have any ideas?

Thanks in advance!

 

[youngfisher]

What is the size of the tank? As I know people will want to no this.


Im just confused - if you think the ram is attacking all the other fish and causing them to die, why would you go and buy more?

 

[Miss Wiggle]

well ram's are a cichlid and although most of them are relatively peaceful they can be agressive sometimes, if you have an aggressive one then you should either re-home him or stock the tank around it.

what are the water parameters now?

 

[sketchy]

The tank's a 90l, and yes, it may seem a bit odd buying more - but as I said before, getting the original to accept food on his own can sometimes be difficult. I deliberately got much larger rams in the hope that the original would leave them alone, and it appears that he has throughout most of the day, as they're swimming around the main part of the tank, while the original fish is back to hiding behind the filter.

I'm not even sure that this is the cause for the Danios, as they are a very rapid little fish, and so the nipping was rather rare, although I had whitnessed it once or twice.

I'm not so sure on the stats just yet as I've just got in. I'll post back here when I've had a chance to test the water - although it should be alright as I did a water change yesterday, and the filter's well established, so it should be able to take the bio-load on it.

 

[sketchy]

OK, water stats are:

Ammonia: 0ppm
Nitrite: 0ppm
Nitrate: I don't know because I've lost the colour chart. But as I said, I did a water change yesterday, and our tap water here has a particularly low amount of nitrate - I remember it being hard to decide if it was 0 or 20ppm out of the tap when I initially set up the tank.

 

[minxfishy]

Your bully ram believes that tank is his and his alone.

Something that works (not always but often) is to completely re-arrange the tank.

You will need to remove the fish (either put them in bucket or bags) whilst doing this.

Take out all the ornaments, plants etc and completely change the layout, adding extra caves, pots etc to create territories, use plants to break up any line of sight issues there might be. Then add the non bully fish back into the tank, leave for an hour, then add the bully ram, everything will look different and they will all need to establish territories, thus putting them all on an even footing.

 

[sketchy]

Thanks, this sounds like a good plan to me. I might put the bully fish into a hospital tank for a day or two and then re-introduce him and see what happens.

 

[pippoodle]

my golden balloon rams are smaller than my bolivians and were introduced after the bolivians but my little golden male rules the tank
he doesn't fin nip just chases people away that come in his patch

i would add more plants to the tank cos if they cant see each other then they only defend their little territory if another fish swims into it and wont go round the tank thinking the whole tank is his

 

[mixmaster jay]

i had 2 royal rams in a 200L tank and one ett the other and now he (i presume) doesn't like my 2 opalines near his corner he doesn't do any damage to them at all and they are not bothered in the slightest they just carry on in what thier doing lol the ram nips them slightly but causes no damage at all oh and he doesn't like my dog sitting on the back of the chair next to the tank he goes crazy at the glass circling my dogs head lol my giant gourami doesn't like my dog much either lol he tries to nip him through the glass lol

 

[sketchy]

Alright guys, cheers for the input so far. Just an update as to what I have done.

I have set up my hospital tank, and strangely enough, put the old ish in. Now I know you're supposed to put the new fish in, but the shop I get them from has always been very good, and I've never has a diseased fish yet. I always check the tanks thouroghly before purchasing a fish, just to make sure that there are no suspect fish in there.

My theory is, that if I leave the old fish in there for a while, while the new Rams settle in and find their own territory, the old fish will be the 'new' one in the tank, and so will hopefully calm down a little. These fish are supposed to be quite sensitive, and so introducing them to the tank is probably one of the most dangerousthings you can do. This way, I'll be reducing the stress, and so hopefully I'll have better luck this time.

I also added some new plants in the hope that this will help, and I may even re-arrange the landscape once they've settled in.

 

[snowflake311]

Is he eating? Rams like to eat off the ground so getting sinking pellets is the way to go when feeding them.

 

[sketchy]

It so far seems to have worked. The new ram is now eating (one unfortunately died), and is looking much healthier and is out exploring the tank.

I thought that he may have had white spot this morning, as when I woke up, there was a large white spot on one of the fins, but after coming back for my lunch today, I saw this had gone. I fed some blood worm which was munched away rather quickly!

As for the old fish eating, although he does eat from the floor, he seems to pick at food as it sinks. Strangely enough, he won't accept anything other than flake. When I feed the catfish, it'll normally pick at the pellet/wafer once or twice, and then wonder off.


Out of curiosity, how do you guys keep the tank floor clean? If I leave food on the bottom, it usually ends up in the corner behind the filter where it's a pain to get to. Because of this, it tends to grow fungus within a day or so. It is because of this that I don't really like feeding them from the substrate. I did once try to get some smaller pellets for the catfish in the hope that the Ram would eat them too, but so many ended up in the corner, or buried in the gravel.