how many can i put in my 55?
- Thread starter Jkoziatek
- Start date
I agree with at least 10 from a water quality standpoint, but from an aggression standpoint, no way.
IME, muliple males of the same species are very bad news with rams - I've even done it in a 55 - it's not enough room and they fight each other until the weak one(s) die. Multiple females is not as much of a problem.
I've also had Bolivian rams (if you mean microgeophagus altispinosa) harass blue rams to the death. Golds and blues together are not as bad (i think the gold is a mutation of the blue?)
A trio if 1 male and two females work well - and then you have room for other fish!
hth,
windsurfer
IME, muliple males of the same species are very bad news with rams - I've even done it in a 55 - it's not enough room and they fight each other until the weak one(s) die. Multiple females is not as much of a problem.
I've also had Bolivian rams (if you mean microgeophagus altispinosa) harass blue rams to the death. Golds and blues together are not as bad (i think the gold is a mutation of the blue?)
A trio if 1 male and two females work well - and then you have room for other fish!
hth,
windsurfer
I agree. I had a 55 ram/apisto setup, and it didn't work (the ram part of it that is). The males basically killed each other off, which triggered one of the females to go on a rampage taking out the other females. I've seen nice 50-65g setups that worked. Maybe it's the tank footprint
If you can get a bunch of females, go for about 10, but if you cant, breeding and male agression will kill some fish
Gouramis would be a rather bad idea... And some tall bodied tetras would be nice but would do little to disperse agression, seeing as the only agression in rams is conspecific.
yeah I agree with teh aggression.
Me and my friend tried to breed these (i came the closest with wrigglers) and my friend bought probably 10 to try to get them to pair off, well they just killed each other until there were about 5 left. He is a very skillful discus and angelfish breeder as well so this surprised me. But I also found out in this process of trying to breed these bolivian rams that only the males are imported, something like that. So females are harder to find. And it turned out there was only one male and 4 females left. I think the male killed the others off.
but the blue and gold I don't have much experience with. But my bolivians have done well with everything from green terrors to neon tetras. They seem much hardier than the other german ones.
So probably no more than 5 unless you can tell the sexes from the start and get more females than males.
Me and my friend tried to breed these (i came the closest with wrigglers) and my friend bought probably 10 to try to get them to pair off, well they just killed each other until there were about 5 left. He is a very skillful discus and angelfish breeder as well so this surprised me. But I also found out in this process of trying to breed these bolivian rams that only the males are imported, something like that. So females are harder to find. And it turned out there was only one male and 4 females left. I think the male killed the others off.
but the blue and gold I don't have much experience with. But my bolivians have done well with everything from green terrors to neon tetras. They seem much hardier than the other german ones.
So probably no more than 5 unless you can tell the sexes from the start and get more females than males.