i seen some beautiful golden rams yesterday at lfs,i hear these fish are more sensitive than your average trop fish,any tips or general advice would be grateful as i fancy a pair of these fish
they are more sensitive than the norm yes but this shouldnt put you off . so long as you have a sound knowledge of basic fish keeping you should be able to keep these fish perfectly well. they like higher temps of around 28 degrees c. the most important things with rams is keeping perfect water quality. they will not handle even small ammounts of ammonia , and are very vulnerable to sudden changes in water paramaters. i keep a pair in my discus tank and they are a delightful little fish , so full of character .
so basicly warmer water , good clean tank/water and most important of all keep things stable. do these 3 things and you should be fine .
neither of my poairs of rams are true breeding pairs i simply mean i have 2 of each. generally they are fine together . the odd squable but nothing nasty.
sorry if sound thick but what do u mean exactly by keeping things stable,do you mean making sure the ph levels stay the same???,by the way i bought a pair this morn,there great little fish,if i have no probs ill get another nxt month!
By stable I would take that as Ammonia and Nitrate zero always, Nitrites keep low with regular water changes and a pH that doesn't fluctuate
When adding these fish to your tank you should take extra care when acclimatising them, leaving them in the bag longer than normal and putting a little tank water in bit by bit over the course of 45 mins or so would be good...otherwise they could get a nasty shock in the new environment with differenet parameters than the LFS and suffer because of it.
ive had my rams for 3 days now,and today they been butting each other quite aggressivley,i asked for a mating pair at the lfs,are they mating? or are they fighting?.dont think its bulling cause they are both at it!
they could be sorting out territorial issues or pecking order since theyre still fairly new to the tank. the female may even be testing the males strength (indication of breeding), or they could both be the same sex.