advice on breeding german rams-lost my fry

[DruidX]

well i bought 3 german rams rams about 3 months ago and asked the fish guy to pick me out 1 male and 2 females... One died and i figured it was the male. well i added a coral like aquarium decoration (cavern in the center with 3 entrances) and the rams quickly moved in. Now i wasn't trying to breed them or anything and never was planning on it eather. So i was sitting on my couch and one would come out chase all the other fish to the other side of the tank go back and then other one would do the same, over and over. I thought this odd so i looked in the coral decor and sure enough inside there were about 50 babies, and already beginning to swim! I thought for sure my filter would get them as the inlet sits about 3 inches above the coral. Well in the end they were all lost in about 3 days of being in a community tank. I think the filter got a few but mainly they were eaten. each day about 20 were lost. the parents seemed really good parents however. one would mainly guard the nest and chase away fish the other would carefully suck up strays and bring them back inside. all was lost when the fry decided to start swimming around the tank and the parents just couldn't keep up with them. i have mainly gouramis, but theres a female betta in there that eats like an Oscar,a pigmy cory, and 2 octos, its a 39 gallon standerd.

now this is the part i need advice on. i want to breed them again, there fertile and paired, have some practice now, and seem willing to breed. i guess there comfortable my water parameters.

-whats the soonest they will will try to breed again? i can't find any info on ram breeding cycles/time. what are some triggers i can use when there ready? i run 6.5 ph, temp set at 84F, and laxed on water changes last time they spawned for about 3 weeks. i fed them bloodworms, flakes, crisps, uncooked leftover shrimp from dinner lol, and small cichlid bites.

-should i breed them in the 39 and removed the eggs next time? i have a 10 gallon i can set up just for them if that would be big enough and a better choice, but its not set up so its not cycled.

-if i use the 10 what steps should i take? time to cycle, any dither fish and what type that won't eat the fry, what decor should i use? if i use the 10 im going to take the old gravel out of my 39 and put it into the 10 to speed up cycling.

-if i use the 10 gallon i have some zeolite i can use as media to keep amonia down while it cycles (i know how to recharge it). would this be good to do or not?

-any other tips/advice?

i'd really like advice from people who have actually successfully bred them if possible.

[Dixie]

WOW ! I don't know why you haven't got a responce before now. It's a very good post.

Sorry, I haven't bred GBRs before (have trouble even keeping them alive) but have experience breeding other cichlids.

I think you're doing everything right (& good for you) if they bred for you before so I would try to duplicate what you were doing before only in the 10g. tank with the GBR's as the only occupants. You could put the used filter media from your 29g. tank into the 10g. tank for an almost instant (24 hrs. I think) cycle. Then add the fish the next day. One trick I know that triggers breeding in some fish is to be a bit lax with the water change (not overly lax though) & then when adding fresh water, use water a tad bit cooler than the tank water & pour the water onto a plate or the palm of your hand held a few inches above the top of the tank water so the water being poured splatters the surface of the tank water simulating rain after a drought.

Hope this has been some help & with some luck you'll probably have babies again in no time. Like I said, it sounds like you were doing right the first time or they wouldn't have bred for you before. I've tried GBRs 3-4 times now & can't keep them alive longer than a month or two so now I have male bolivians. If I can keep them alive, I want to get some females and try breeding them.
Best Wishes

[DruidX]

well i probably didn't get much response cause GBR breeding threads are pretty numerous. i found a lot of helpful info after reading them all.

well in the end i moved my community fish into the ten and filled it with gravel from my 39 to cycle last week. my female died not long after :( i went out and bought 5 more GBR's and now have 6 in my 39 with 2 flying foxes. Now im more interested in courting behavior as i can't really find much info on behavior on GBR's. Not even 24 hours of owning my new GBR's 2 fat females i bought have been vigorously been cleaning 2 nest sites on opposite side of the tank, must still smell the hormones in the water lol. Both of the females only seem interested in my surviving dominant male but he's doesn't seem interested in them! they will swim halfway across the tank to enticed him but he won't follow eather back to there nests o_0. on the occasions when the females happen to meet in the middle to entice him at the same time they get mad at each other and fight over him! The big male sometimes visits both nests sights and hangs out for a bit, the females vigorously start cleaning the nests at high speed when he comes near and swim up and curl around and try to herd him to an exact spot, sometimes the male will move in close and clean as well. He seems likes he's interested sometimes and just losses interest after a while.

will my male ever choose a new mate or do they pair for life? Is he still deciding which female is more dominant or can't choose? will rams take multiple mates (harem breed)? He also seems quite interested still proving he is the dominant fish. he spends a lot of time chasing all the other fish and raming them. most have come to the conclusion hes the master of the castle as they will list to the side slightly and let him casually nibble on them, almost like he's picking food off them. he doesn't do it roughly though and the other fish don't even move, they just hover there and let him do it! is this common?

I'm thinking maybe the male just doesn't feel relaxed enough to breed with all the new additions in the tank. My worst fear is that he will just reject all the females :(

[Dixie]

Sounds like you're having a great time enjoying your fish and observing their behavior. Funny how we start out with no intentions of breeding, just wanting some pretty fish in a tank to look at occasionally, but the breeding process is so interesting & amazing that when it happens we want to get involved and learn all we can about it & our fish. I think that's so cool. Wish I had more experience & knowledge of the rams to help you out more with your questions but all I can really do is offer my opinion based on fish keeping in general. I'm sure you can find the info you seek somewhere on the net, if not here, though.

I think it's pretty normal for the male to prove his dominance to the females & the other fish in the tank (he is a cichlid after all) and as long as he isn't hurting the other fish that will be ok. In fact, I think everything will be ok. I suppose he could reject all your females but I think it's pretty doubtful that he will. Just give him time to settle in to his new surroundings & companions. When he does choose a mate, it's possible that he will kill the others but that's more probably in a 10g. tank. A 39g. tank may be big enough that he won't see the other fish as so much of a threat. This is where experience would come in handy. In your tank & situation, I think it would be hard to give definate answers as to what will happen that's why I suggested using a 10g. tank for breeding... less variables to deal with. All in all, I'd say relax and just let nature take it's course. That worked for you before (wink).

[Lab_Rat]

Just give him time, he'll pick a mate. I mean, how many males turn down willing females...not many. They tend to pair up, they are not harem breeders like mbuna. Do watch when some pair that the odd ones out don't get beat on. Love triangles in rams end up with one live pair and one dead fish.

[DruidX]

well good news Dixie! after only 48 hours of owning my new rams my old male picked one of the females and she laid eggs yesterday! It wasn't the one i thought he would pick. i thought he would pick the new female that built a nest in the same coral ornament that my old female used and he spawned in before. But, he picked the other one who is smaller who built a nest on the side of a medium sized cichlid stone. unfortunately it directly under my filter inlet so im going to have to put foam on it. I'm starting to wonder if GBR's like light current over there nest... Even though she was smaller she still laid around 100 eggs. I'm not sure how good of a mom she will be cause i've seen her picking at the area with the eggs. I'm not sure if she is keeping the stone clean, cleaning the eggs, or eating them. Guess i will find out if they all come up missing... She also doesn't protect the nest as furiously as my female who died. The male does a good job chasing the other rams away however and he seems to be the one who is actually caring for them as he fans them constanly. I have noticed one thing odd though. He only chases SOME of the rams away. Others he will let hover as close as 2 inches to the nest and they seem fascinated with the eggs. They don't try to care for the nest or eat the eggs though they just stay there and watch! Any ideas why he would let some of the rams so close? are they probably just other curious females? The moma ram doesn't chase them away eather! im wondering if maybe there her sisters...

Since it's her first batch im not expecting any fry to make it to juvies, but i will try to help as best i can. I could use some advice on how to feed the fry when they become free swimming. I don't have any equipment to raise baby brine shrimp and the rams will be free swimming before i can raise shrimp anyway. The gravel is new and so are most of the ornaments and fake plants, which means not many surfaces with micro organisms except the glass. I've heard you can use boiled egg yolks, but that it fouls the water super fast and i don't want to risk killing my adults trying to raise the fry! Another option a read was "infusora" it's called i think. you put some lettuce in a jar and sit it in the sun. But i've never done this before. do i leave it outside? it's been droping into the 60's at night here already. how long does it take to grow them? i assume i feed them it with a turkey baster? I've read you can use "first bites" too. but i've read mixed things about it. An idea i had was frozen dafnia but im not sure if that is good enough or small enough. any other ideas? A friend of mines suggested feeding stones, the kind you use when you go on vacation. he said the might be able to graze one it like a surface with micro organisms but i've never heard of that being used.

[Dixie]

Congratulations! I think you're right not to get your hopes up with the first few batches of eggs. Interesting that the parents are letting some fish in to view the eggs. I would try the lettuce in a jar of water. I just read about it today too. The article I read said to sit it in a sunny window sill so I'm assuming indoors, especially if it's cooling off at night. I would use a turkey baster to get the food to them. I've had good results grinding up my regular food (New Life Spectrum sinking cichlid pellets) into a powder to feed fry (have never had ram fry though). You can use a mortor & pistol to crush the food or put a bit in a spoon & use the back of the bowl of another spoon to smash & crush up the pellets to a fine powder. I then add a tiny bit of water to make the powder into a paste consistancy then hold a pinch between my tumb and forfinger & lower it into the desired spot in the tank (I have my hands & arms in the tanks a lot haha). You can then rub your thumb & finger back & forth together to release a cloud of food right where the fry are. You can also leave a little clump of the paste for them to graze on.

[Spardas]

Druid,

Congratulation on the rams. The best advice on raising fry will be to artificially raise them as I believe that the parents are also the culprit of eating the young.

It's easy to get them to spawn but raising the fry is rather difficult. It's even more difficult than raising discus fry. So, once the eggs are fertilized; I would take them out into a separate setup (10 gallon would be fine) and keep it bare bottom. Add in meth blue to prevent fungus. You have to make sure the tank is cycled and there are absolutely no ammonia, nitrite, and very little nitrate.

Once they hatch, they can't eat normal food but very small food. You can use vinegar eels or infusoria as starter food, followed by microworms and then bbs. Do some research on all of the food source I mentioned first before going to the next step I'm about to mention. Once you have food on standby, you can proceed to the next step.

What I would do is get another 10 gallon, cycle it with established media you have and make sure it is cycled. Get the next fertilized spawn and artificially raised them in the 10 gallon. Fill the tank up only half way for the newly hatched fry. Make sure there is good aeration in the tank. Use meth blue to prevent fungus. Change the water daily at least 50% with the EXACT parameters. Age your water. Once they start feeding on bbs, you can fill the tank up but make sure to keep the water parameters the same while you change it daily. The water has to be perfect for them. Have a larger cycled tank on standby (55 gallon) so that once they reach a dime size, move them so that they have room to grow on. Feed many times a day but not so much per serving. Water quality must be clean. I can't stress this enough.

GL & HF. :hmm3grin2orange:

[DruidX]

well spardas i have a 1o gallon cycling now for about a week, thats were i put all my community fish(see my signature). i used old gravel from my 39 gallon to speed things up but i think i still should wait 2-3 more weeks? when it's cycled i was planning on taking all the gravel out. after that i will put in a long air wand the total length of the 10 gallon with an air pump.My filter for the tank is a 75 GPH hob filter with holes down the inlet pipe that slips into a 7"x5"x8" sponge that i made myself lol. so its a sponge/Hob combo. the Hob filter still has filter mesh in it and had room to add another sponge that measures aprox 4"x1"x5". as you can see my media bed is huge for a 10 gallon lol. the reason for the large sponge on the inlet was to prevent fry from getting sucked up and give them a huge grazing area to feed on microorganisms. unfortunately like i stated above the tank has only cycled for a week so far though so isn't ready as a hatchery yet :(

So it looks like this batch will have to be reared in the 39 with the other rams. hopefully by next batch my 10 will be cycled.

after reading about fry food i think im going to try my luck trying to get some infusoria culture going. As a back up plan i will get some frozen dafnia, hikari first bits, and either some frozen BBS or freeze dried cyclopses. if my culture turns out at least i will have some supplemental foods..

[Spardas]

Just keep testing the water in the 10 gallon and make sure it's cycle and you shouldn't have any issues. Acriflavine is also another good choice in place of meth blue and it won't stain your silicone either.

[DruidX]

won't those drugs kill my beneficial bacteria? would a bath be better than putting it in the tank?

[Spardas]

If used as recommended combined with daily water changes; it won't be a problem. Meth blue and acriflavine have been used to keep fungus out of fry and beyond 2-3 days of free swimming stage for a long time. The only thing to keep in mind is clean water and large water changes. But you have to make sure everything matches so that you don't shock the fry.