Ram aggression??

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TayHudson

TayHudson

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Aug 26, 2010
253
3
0
Baltimore, MD
So I have a pair (M & F) of german blue rams in my 40 with 1 green severum, 1 senegal bichir and 1 bn pleco.

I did a WC and cleaning yesterday on their tank and today I've noticed the male ram has become very aggressive towards the severum, who minds her own business and the bichir, who also is very chill. He's only about 3" long and the severum is about 4 1/2-5".

He (the ram) has been chasing the severum around, and pecking at the bichir. I just noticed also the female's colors are getting super dark when the severum comes around her. I see NO eggs anywhere, but I'm wondering if this is a sign of possible spawning?? I've never in my life had fish that have had babies since I'm still really new at this.

The guy at the LFS I got the rams from said, sometimes after a water change they spawn but will most likely eat the eggs.

Usually they're really chill and only chase each other around.

Can someone shed some light on this? Any advice would be awesome! Thanks :)
 
Are your rams protecting a particular area of the tank? Male rams will usually chase away what they deem as threats to their spawn. When he is chasing the severum away, is he perusing it beyond about a foot from where the pair is setting up house? Rams aren't usually to aggressive when they aren't breeding except to other rams. You might just have a more aggressive pair of rams then usual. Now if they are breeding a fairly large water changes usually trigger spawning behavior in rams. Rams can be fearless when it comes to defending their nest chasing away fish that could easily swallow them, but will usually eat the first two batches of eggs before they get everything down. Their eggs can be fairly hard to see because rams aren't the biggest cichlids, but if you watch them closely you will see them cleaning an spawning site or you might catch them in the act of egg laying. Here's hoping for a successful spawn :)
 
RedDwarf;4542646; said:
Are your rams protecting a particular area of the tank? Male rams will usually chase away what they deem as threats to their spawn. When he is chasing the severum away, is he perusing it beyond about a foot from where the pair is setting up house? Rams aren't usually to aggressive when they aren't breeding except to other rams. You might just have a more aggressive pair of rams then usual. Now if they are breeding a fairly large water changes usually trigger spawning behavior in rams. Rams can be fearless when it comes to defending their nest chasing away fish that could easily swallow them, but will usually eat the first two batches of eggs before they get everything down. Their eggs can be fairly hard to see because rams aren't the biggest cichlids, but if you watch them closely you will see them cleaning an spawning site or you might catch them in the act of egg laying. Here's hoping for a successful spawn :)
Click to expand...

He flares his fins and his color gets really dark and he charges the severum till she retreats. Like I said, they have NEVER been this aggressive. They love to be at the front of the tank, and play and show off. This is new to me.


I just noticed that the male ram is going over to the bubble strip and then he goes over to the small terracotta plate where I usually put food and spitting the bubbles on it. They don't stick or anything, but could that be considered cleaning a spawning site??

Here is a quick video : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WU_IQoCrdsw
 
Your little ram looks to be undecided about which site it wants to clean. When picking and cleaning a spawning site they will literally pick at the site and clean off any thing they can remove. That transferring of the the bubbles is new to me, have never seen that before. Think of the spawning site as their bed, they make the bed and then proceed to clean off the specks of lint and stuff until it's as clean as it can be. It's appears your ram is picking between the air stone and the terracotta plate. The bubble transfer thing is just fun to watch. You can see pictures of my bolivian rams breeding and egg laying in my album.
 
bubbles are new to me too, but once they start cleaning a spot you will know for sure. i took this video of my tank on my computer's webcam but its pretty cool footage of them cleaning their rock...


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I have a small female convict that does the same thing, goes to the airstone, gets a mouthful of air, then swims about 6 inches away and open's her mouth releasing the bubble

My two year old daughter gets a kick out of it, she says "Itty bitty is blowing bubbles!!" (she named all of the convicts)

She does it regularly, but never swims to the same place to release the air.

I thought it was somewhat odd behavior myself
 
I am starting to venture into the realm of Rams for my daughters tank. Any advice you may have for me in regards to water parameters? Going tomorrow to get 1 male and three females, or I am gonna try to sex them. I really dig their behavior...amusing!
 
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