Black rams (Mikrogeophagus ramirezi)
- Thread starter ryansmith83
- Start date
Yep, nothing special about the water.
Mo, these are in Florida tap. pH around 7.6 - 7.8, TDS probably 200ppm, hardness (gh/kh) around 7. I just give them regular water changes, keep them 82 - 84F, and make sure they’re not in with tankmates that stress them out. Rams don’t do well with stress but otherwise they’re pretty rock solid fish if you get good quality ones. The dark ones are very aggressive compared to normal rams — kind of like DD black angels compared to other angels.
And a blurry picture of some of the fry. I'm seeing weirdly shaped foreheads, similar to EBJD. I don't know if they'll grow into them or if they're culls.
Another spawn is currently at 4 weeks old. This spawn was much smaller than the last few but also healthier and stronger. You can see that there's about a 50/50 split of regular rams versus dark rams.
What do you mean by “weirdly shaped foreheads”...can you elaborate? Are they abnormally long? Also, are the jet black ones keeping up with their siblings? If not, you might want to raise them separately. Would love to see a pic of the jet black fry. Great project...keep us posted and good luck!
The foreheads were misshapen like EBJD tend to be.
Luckily I haven't seen any like that in this spawn. I also didn't see any of the jet black fry in this spawn, unfortunately. The parents may have eaten them before I separated them.
I attempted siphoning out a few in the first spawn with a piece of airline tubing, as I do all cichlid fry, and just the force of the siphon killed them. They were dead when they hit the container I was siphoning them into. So unfortunately it's best for me to leave them in place for several weeks until they're big/strong enough to handle.
Interesting fault with the head shape. I have also noticed unusually long heads on EBR’s that looks odd in a short, stout fish. Also, sorry to hear you lost the jet black fry. Please keep us updated...can’t wait to see a future batch!
