Help! Gold Ram Eggs!

[Godsend]

Hello all. I am new to this forum. Nice to meet all of you.

So, about a week ago I obtained a fully mature pair or gold rams. I put them in a 20gal tank with black gravel and a few fake plants. I decided to put in a few pieces of red slate rock for them to lay eggs on. This is my first experiance with cichlids. My fish raising experiances are limited to guppies, platies and pirranahs. So needless to say i don't know what i am doing.

Lucky for me the two fish seemed to pair immidiatly and i obverved that they stay side-by-side and the syncronize their swimming.
I am fairly certain i have a male and female.
I am keeping track of temp, nitrate, ph, alkalinity, hardness, clorine, and nitrite levels.
I am feeding very well.
I was told that they like soft water and soft water is better for the eggs so i lowered the general hardness to about 20ppm.
on friday night i came home to a patch of yellowish white eggs on the slate rock.
The male was fanning and gurding while the female looked to be in ok shape. In general the male is taking care of the eggs but is also very friendly to the female, who also looks after the eggs when the male is eating.
I not used any medication or plant food ect in this tank
I woke up this morning(sunday) and the eggs have taken on a pale white colour and the pair have for the most part lost interest in the eggs. The patch off eggs seems like some have gone missing or that the were flattened. Long story short, i think my eggs are dead. I am very sad.

so after telling you what is going on in my tank, is there anything i am doing wrong???
Why have my eggs changed apperance and why are the rams not caring for them anymore???
WHAT IS HAPPENING! I"M LOSING MY BABIES!!!!!!!!!!!! someone help me plssssss

 

[minxfishy]

Its not unusual for rams to lose the first batch or maybe more spawnings, they will either lose interest, as it sounds like they have this time, because they are not fertile (white eggs usually means they are not fertile) or even once the eggs hatch and become fry, to eat those as well.

Sounds like you are doing everything right, it will just take them time to work out what they are doing.

Take out any remaining eggs and just leave them to get on with it.

Do you have any other fish in the tank with them, if so, what are they?

 

[Godsend]

Its not unusual for rams to lose the first batch or maybe more spawnings, they will either lose interest, as it sounds like they have this time, because they are not fertile (white eggs usually means they are not fertile) or even once the eggs hatch and become fry, to eat those as well.

Sounds like you are doing everything right, it will just take them time to work out what they are doing.

Take out any remaining eggs and just leave them to get on with it.

Do you have any other fish in the tank with them, if so, what are they?

Unfortunately the opportunity to remove the remaining eggs has past.
There were fish in the tank but when i put the rams in i took everything out. Including the pleco and plague-snails(which i crushed)

I have a couple of questions. In your opinion, what are the chances that my eggs were destroyed by fungus? Also the slate rock is situated above coarse gravel. Do you think it is possible that the young fell between the gravel?
Do you think it is possible the young were sucked up the filter?
Is there anything i can do to make sure the eggs are fertilized?
any help is greatly appreciated

 

[ppipanman]

well as far as i can tell minx sounds right, just unfertilized. the fungus is usually fuzzy and with the parents in with the eggs the chance of fungus is lower. you male just "Shot some blanks" as they say LOL just give them time and you'll get some fry.