Bolivian Rams Spawn

[Slimy]

My bolivian rams spawned on 5/15

5/17 Wigglers. Unfortunately I wasn't able to take a clear picture. My camera has autofocus issues. Also when the parents feel too threatened they scoop up the wigglers and move them. Since the camera makes them nervous I avoided disturbing them as much as possible.

5/21 Free swimming today.

While this is the third time they spawn, it's the first time they make it past the wigglers stage.
This time around the male is taking a very active role in defending the eggs and the fry. He's the one that was scooping up and holding wigglers or moving them to new locations. He's also holding his spot with the fry when the female is gone and both are doing their best at keeping them in a controlled area.

Since they are in a community tank with corydoras, tetras and a very big and fat SAE, their chances of survival are slim. I have to say the parents have done an impressive job keeping everyone away so far, but after watching a few fish do fly-by's through the cloud of fry I decided to leave half with the parents and move another half to their own tank.

Their tank is currently a 3g filled with water from the source tank and with a sponge filter. I am going to do small water changes once or twice a day. I'm currently feeding hikari first bites. I'll switch to newly hatched brine shrimp in a few days.

 

[ox5477]

Looks good

Not suprising it took them a few times to get the spawning thing right. Most cichlids take a few clutches to get it exactly right. But, now that they have it down, they will be excellent parents for the rest of their lives

Good idea moving the fry. Always nice to see them grow. Do you have a bigger grow out tank for them? Maybe a 20 or 30G for when they start getting a little bigger?

 

[Guinness]

Wow

Lucky you, I've moved my pair of Blue Rams into their own tank about 5 days ago & still waiting.Caves, flat rocks etc a perfect love nest

Would you say that they need the first couple of attempts to get it right -parenting wise ?? Any chance that they themselves might eat the fry ? They have come from a 70G community tank, & have never seen them spawn before, but no doubt if they did, something else would have eaten them. Although classed as cichlids, have found them very timid.

Any tips as I love Rams & would like to breed some of my own.

 

[ox5477]

all cichlids take a few tries before they get the parenting thing right. For the first few clutches, either they didn't get the fertilization right, or keeping the eggs well airated, or they just don't realize what they are and eat their own eggs. After two or three attempts, they will know exactly what to do at each step. Even with this, some young don't survive and if any eggs are dead, are unfertilized, or don't hatch, the parents will eat them keep disease from spreading to the other young. Also, they will pick them up and move them to a "pit" or cave where only one direction is open to predators. This makes it much easier for the parents to defend the young.

Just cause you have never seen them spawn before, may not mean that they haven't. With hungry little active fish at nights, all the eggs can dissappear in a matter of a few hours. Do you see them swimming together and diggin out little pits in the substrate that look like craters? If you see these two signs then they are prob getting ready to lay eggs.


Rams are very "timid" as you say when compared to other larger species such as JD's, GT's and o's but they are still very territorial and will defend their plot of water against any fish that they see as a threat. But they don't have the normal tenacity that many larger species have and since they stay small, they are often seen as a perfect community fish that adds character and color to a tank

 

[Slimy]

Yes, it definitely took them a few times to get it right. There's a lot of things these guys need to do correctly to ensure the survival of their fry, so it's easy to make a mistakes.

The first time he did not get the concept of protecting the eggs. She would trade him the spot over the rock so she could feed but after a few seconds he would just seem to forget what he was doing there and wander away...
The second time it was less so. He got the idea of defending... kind of. I think he ended up eating the eggs because on the last day she was doing everything she could to keep him away from them. Maybe he started eating the unfertilized ones (to prevent fungus), as he should, and accidentally moved on to the fertilized ones
This time he's fierce and determined. Even the SAE that is much larger and a super glutton learned to keep its distance.
He was also very cautious about picking up the wigglers and moving them when defenses seemed to fail. Very cool to see.

Overall I thought the female was a really good mom from the start. I did not see her make any of the mistakes, but it could just be that he did not give her a chance to

Today the number of fry in the tank seems to be dwindling slowly, but it doesn't surprise me too much. Now that they are free swimming the parents are trying to keep them in the corner, but as time passes they are up against an impossible task. 8 corys, 18 fast tetras and the fat yet nimble sae are around and it's rather easy for the occasional fry to wander off unnoticed.

*edit*
Forgot to mention one thing that I thought was very interesting. On the day the eggs hatched the parents seemed to help them do so in their mouths. I'm not clear why this is necessary, or if I misread what was going on, but they seemed to pick up unhatched eggs and spit out shell debris and wigglers.