My first cichlid!

Hey cichlid people, I have great news! I got my very first cichlid!

She is a German Blue Ram, probably under 6 months because she is on the small side. I originally had the idea to get her in order to eat up some of the millions of guppy fry I'm about to have, but finally decided to do it on the basis that they are just really cool fish. None of my other fish have the sort of personality a ram tends to display, and I am really liking having her so far. I got her at Aquarium Co-Op after the plant swap last Saturday, so I have had her just under a week and she seems to be settling in fine. Half the reason I decided to get her was that Cory had other fish from the same local breeder which looked outstanding- some amazing "Orange Flash" Apistos and some "Gold Faced" GBR that all looked super healthy.

My tank is a pretty well-stocked community tank, and although I have heard they can be aggressive, I haven't seen her so much as nip at another fish yet. Even the guppy fry I transferred in don't seem to interest her. She does like flakes, Hikari micro pellets, Hikari crab cuisine and live blackworms though, but maybe when she's older she will turn killer :DHere's hoping so *maniacal grin* I think I have also seen her eat a few tiny baby snails, which is good because they are going to start getting out of hand soon.

She is still doing a little bit of pacing the glass as she settles in, but now I usually see her hunting for tidbits under the plants and along the bottom when I see her. She also seems to have made a cave in the back home, but thankfully doesn't stay there all the time hiding. I love the way she hunts, just cruising along and then suddenly she stops dead- slowly she drifts in for the kill and NOM! No more snail.

I'm gonna try to get good pictures of her later, but first I need to find the cord for the good camera. Here is a placeholder:
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About to strike

Also, this is a female, right? Pink belly, doesn't have longer dorsal spikes

Damnit, I swear I clicked on "American Cichlids".... Can a mod move this over please?

nice ram. congrats

 - German blues are an awesome species!

Wait that has to be an African cichlid cause its so small and colorful.  

Thread moved. And nice looking Ram.

GBR was what got me interested in dwarf cichlids, but I couldn't find any locally, so I ended up getting some Apistogramma when I went to Oregon. Definitely fun to watch dwarfs though.

Everyone seems to think these are african rams.  

Welcome to cichlids though!!! You probably will never go back!!!  

Beautiful fish ... and yes, cichlids ROCK!!!!

Pretty girl you got there

Quote-Karawolf
Yup female XD she has blue spots in her black spot :)Little beauty you have right there <3
@ Kara wolf
Learn  new things things. I knew about males black long fin on top.

@ L.A.
I love my dwarf cichlids and my african cichlids. You will too.Now I want monster cichlids.  Too bad no room.
Are you planning to breed her?

@everyone: I know I posted it in the wrong place, see the second post in the thread. And thanks madness for moving it for me. I could've sworn I clicked on "american" and not "african" cichlids, sorry about that

I might breed some GBR in the future, but I would want to get another female and a male, so that I can be more sure I'll get the male to pair with one. I don't want to get just two and have them kill each other :/ I'm sure it would be fun to watch, but I probably wouldn't do it on the scale to make a profit or anything

But yes, this is quickly becoming my favorite fish that I have kept. Very colorful and charismatic, this morning I swear she was watching me vacuum my room with much interest

No worries L A, I tease because there is a dwarf jewel cichlid that is sometimes called an african ram that is rather nasty for a dwarf cichlid (very pretty though).

KaraWolf - They are fine if kept in high heat and you start with good stock. Someone that breeds locally as opposed the mass asian farm bred ones. Those are the ones that are rather sickly.

Pretty fish!  I've never kept them, but I used to keep Bolivian rams.  Always wanted to try the GBRs.

Update: Over the last couple weeks she has settled in nicely, and seems to be doing well! She is eating ravenously, and has actually gotten pretty fat! She is growing well too though, and has colored up more since I got her.

I haven't really been fussing about the water quality or anything either, and everything seems to be going well. I was always scared to try a nicer fish like this until now, because I wasn't sure the water parameters were steady, but I think my sense that the tank has finally reached a decent equilibrium was right.

Here she is, chowing on a mini algae wafer meant for my shrimplets who live in that java moss:

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Looking happy and healthy. Good job LA.

Looks great, Nice set up.

Yeah, some of that might be red ramshorns, but there is at least one little shrimpy in that pic. Bonus points for KaraWolf!!!

So far I think her favorite food is Hikari "crab cuisine," but does anyone have other suggestions for a good staple food for her? I also try to mix it up with other dry, frozen and live foods like live blackworms and frozen daphnia/bloodworms/spirulina brine (for color!) I have tried repashy shrimp souffle as well, but I haven't seen her show any interest in it... though my guppies and snails can't get enough of it.

LuminousAphid wrote:Hey cichlid people, I have great news! I got my very first cichlid!

Sh
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About to strike

Also, this is a female, right? Pink belly, doesn't have longer dorsal spikes

Aye nice fish! But alas I regret to inform you of some bad news for ya. Your FUBAR. Ya see the problem with cichlids is you cant own just one... one turns to 3 which turns to 5, and before you know it your entire garage is lined with fish tanks of cichlids and you lose taste for the more tame species. Cheers!

So, the other day I got another ram, who I think is a male... but I really can't tell for sure, it could possibly be another female. It doesn't have any pink at all in its belly, its black spot is solid black, and it does have the extended dorsal spines, which leads me to believe it's male; on the other hand it does have black in its front-bottom fins (I can't remember the technical term for them, but I have read online that only females have black on them?), its black spot has blue all around it, and its dorsal spines aren't much longer than the female's.

So, I think either I have a younger male, or a dominant female. The new one has been chasing the female around some of the time, but then last night I came home to see a nest dug out and the female laying eggs, and what looked like the new one fertilizing them... I for sure saw the female laying the eggs, as I could actually see them coming out of her, so I know the original ram is a female. The new one was making similar motions over the eggs after the female had laid them, which I assume is his (trying to) fertilize them, but I just can't tell if maybe it's a female and laying more eggs, because it was really brushing up against the bottom and I couldn't get a good look.

It doesn't matter much anyway, because by this morning all the snails and shrimp in the tank had eaten most, if not all, of the eggs, but I'm just wondering if I have a pair or two females. They definitely look different from each other, and the new one is certainly acting dominant with the chasing, but I don't want to assume I have 1 male and 1 female without knowing for sure. I suppose I will just keep watching them and see whether the new one starts to look more female as it settles in, or whether it really is a male.

I am a bit worried because the new one looks sort of skinny, and is probably using a lot of his energy chasing the female around, so I hope it's getting enough to eat.

when they are spawning  look at the ovipositor(breeding tube)  it is the  surest way of identifying the sex.
males  thin  and pointed female thicker and  blunt on the end.

while M. Ramirezi are  fairly easy to ID  via sexual traits.. there have been some 'cross over' characteristics.(ie  dorsal, spots etc). this is  especially true with the 'Gold' variant of the species.

BTW, good luck I hope you found a pair.
Mine have yet to spawn of course they are housed in my Discus tank.

Just a quick update: the two seem to be getting along better now, and the male isn't chasing the female every time he sees her. Last night they were peacefully eating dinner together, which was a nice sight

Also, I'm fairly sure now that the newer one is male, he has started growing a bit and colored up more boldly, and he definitely looks male to me

So another update:

About 40 hours ago i came home from work to find the pair spawning again, and this time the female was laying eggs on an anubias leaf, which is a much more protected place than the substrate where she laid before. I have been trying not to watch them too closely, but it's hard since they did it just as my weekend was starting... So far things look good, there were a few that got fuzzy with fungus but the parents seem to be taking care of them (i.e. eating the ones that are no good). I think I got lucky with a pair who are good parents for the most part, because I can definitely see the eggs darkening and showing little black spots in each (everyone assumes these are eyes, but I don't know...)

I'm still not holding out much hope that the eggs will even hatch, much less survive to become free-swimming, but there is always the slim chance that they will. I have been trying to keep my water pretty soft for them lately, but there might still be too much calcium in the water for the eggs, and they might harden up and fail to hatch.

If anything, it's really interesting to watch the parents take turns guarding the eggs and literally tag each other out when they switch places. They are also very colorful right now, almost as much as right when they were spawning. I don't really have a problem with no cable TV when I have something like this to watch instead, and it's probably cheaper

That's one of my favorite thing to watch with my dwarf pair ... the female forces the male to watch the eggs/fry and goes eat, then comes back and releases the male to feed while she hovers with the babies. I love watching the team work. Essence of cichlid right there for me.

Yeah it was pretty fun to watch, unfortunately I didn't get any fry that I can see The eggs did hatch, which surprised me; when I came home from work the parents had moved them to a piece of wood with java moss, but it was right in the current of my filter, which was probably not the best place for the little guys :/

Either the parents just ate them, or they starved/got washed away in the current and then got eaten. I'm sure the guppies and other fish appreciated the snack, at least. I look forward to seeing how they do next time, and whether they learn from the experience.... it seems like they got much better at it compared to the first time they tried, so if they keep learning to be better parents I will have fry in no time!

You might want to get a piece of filter sponge and put a slit in it and slide it over the bottom end of your filter intake tube. It will still pull water into the filter, prevent fry from being sucked into the filter, and provide more minute surface areas for bacterial colonies.

When you clean it, because it will eventually clog and reduce the filter flow, just slip the sponge piece off the tube, and squeeze it several times under running water, or in a container of aquarium water, then slip it back over the end of the tube.  This way you will retain a lot of the bacteria that have colonized the sponge and you lose little effect of the bacteria in the Nitrogen Cycle process.

Mine love to put the wigglers in the current as well. Though they usually move them again after that. Perhaps a mild 'doh' moment. The fry will have an yolk sack for about 3 days after they hatch, so feeding them isn't an issue until you actually see the tiny things swimming up in the water colunm.

Congratulations on the pair and the spawnage! Mark what Chiisai says...cichlids are like potato chips...and there's nothing like watching them raise a family.

fishloverRon wrote:You might want to get a piece of filter sponge and put a slit in it and slide it over the bottom end of your filter intake tube. It will still pull water into the filter, prevent fry from being sucked into the filter, and provide more minute surface areas for bacterial colonies.

  

That has actually been one of my most useful purchases in my recent fishkeeping experience, and it only cost me $3.50. Intake sponges are magic, except that you have to clean them out every couple of weeks to keep the flow going at the same rate.

So, I doubt that the wigglers got sucked into the filter, but might have gotten blown out into "open water" by the outflow and then eaten by guppies. Good advice though, I would strongly encourage everyone to run a sponge on their filter intake. Not only does it provide more surface area for good critters, but it acts as a good pre-filter, and you won't need to clean the inner floss (or whatever you use inside your filter) as often. It also gives you a sort of "refugium" for bacteria like you said, so that when you clean the interior filter components, you still have bacteria in the sponge to keep cycling going, and vice-versa.

I think this is the main thing that has allowed me to get away with using a $25 Aqueon HOB filter for all these months on my 20 gallon, along with the aux sponge filter I have running in there (while also never doing any gravel vacuuming). My nitrates do get sort of high sometimes, but I have never had any ammonia or nitrite show up when testing, so my bio filter is very efficient partly due to the sponges.

So, this male still seems like he might be sick, but he is hanging in there. I even moved again the other day, and he made it just fine.

I'm not sure I want to do it, because it would probably cost as much or more than the actual fish, but anyone have recommendations for treating intestinal parasites in Blue Rams specifically?