Ram cichlids

[esoxlucius]

I've set up my hex tank now. I painted the back three panels of the tank black, and decided to go with black substrate. A couple of rocks and a piece of Java wood finish off a simple scape.

Ignore the unsightly sponges, they're only there temporarily to help bacteria wise during the transition.

The tank's been set up about 24hrs and already the fish are way more active than they were in my little 10g quarantine tank. In effect they're still in quarantine because they're the only fish in the tank. Going off their activity levels I won't need dithers in this tank.

I may eventually add some greenery but for now I'm pretty happy with the set up and the way the fish are responding.

 

[MultipleTankSyndrome]

Would be interested in hearing duanes ' take on this tank's aquascape.

Sponge filters are so useful to kickstart a cycle! I got my 110 liter set up in a pinch with a seeded one - you'll find it totally worth the ugliness.

 

[The Morning]

I think the tank looks great. I am a big fan of the rams and I think I you will find that with proper care they are extremely personable little fish. I do 20-30% water changes 2x per week to keep up water quality.
Am I correct that males have the black spot without the blue within the confines while the females have the blue spots?

 

[esoxlucius]

Am I correct that males have the black spot without the blue within the confines while the females have the blue spots

Yes, I believe that is one way to sex them, though this method is now puzzling me. Two of my three "males" have the black spot, but WITH the blue spangling, making these two males.....FEMALE!!

The third one has a very faint black spot and I can't tell if there's spangling or not, so it's a bit difficult at this moment to tell.

The guy in the shop said the display tank only had males in!! I'm extremely unsure now, lol.

 

[Milingu]

Am I correct that males have the black spot without the blue within the confines while the females have the blue spots?

With the most wildcaught ones it works but unfortunately a lot of bred strains have lost this trait and it can be really difficult to sex them without observing their behaviour.

 

[esoxlucius]

My three rams are doing ok but one of them, although eating healthily enough, seems to have that skinny look. The other two are plumper.

Is there a standard treatment that will take care of all the internal strains of worms we're likely to come across, or do I need to know what specific type of worms it has to successfully treat it?

I hope it's not the latter. How the hell would you know what type of worm the fish has? If it is a one treatment cures all, then which is the most effective?

 

[duanes]

Most of the anti-helminth drugs cover the vast majority of common worms, and some other intestinal parasites.
Many versions exist depending on what's legal in your location in the world
Ivermectin, Levamisole, Praziquantel etc etc

 

[Niki_up]

I use prazipro and liquid goat dewormer with fenbenzadol for all worms

 

[esoxlucius]

I ended up using levamisole to treat the possible worm problem. I followed the instructions to the letter, may need another dose, just monitoring for now.

One thing worth a mention though on this little hex tank is that although I transferred some mature sponges over from my other tank, for a few days I was getting a rather annoying and persistent 0.25ppm ammonia reading. I water changed daily waiting for the bacteria to catch up.

Anyway, yesterday I picked up some java moss from my LFS and attached three clumps to the piece of Java wood in the tank. This morning my ammonia is 0ppm!!

I don't think I'll ever know whether it's the java moss that's done it, or whether my bacteria caught up on the day after I added the moss? I've read that java moss is particularly effective at sucking out the ammonia, so maybe the former.

Anyway, fish are doing well, eating fine, extremely inquisitive. Certainly no need for dithers. I love this little tank and over the coming weeks, as the java moss takes hold, this tank should look rather nice.

 

[duanes]

I ended up using levamisole to treat the possible worm problem. I followed the instructions to the letter, may need another dose, just monitoring for now.

One thing worth a mention though on this little hex tank is that although I transferred some mature sponges over from my other tank, for a few days I was getting a rather annoying and persistent 0.25ppm ammonia reading. I water changed daily waiting for the bacteria to catch up.

Anyway, yesterday I picked up some java moss from my LFS and attached three clumps to the piece of Java wood in the tank. This morning my ammonia is 0ppm!!

I don't think I'll ever know whether it's the java moss that's done it, or whether my bacteria caught up on the day after I added the moss? I've read that java moss is particularly effective at sucking out the ammonia, so maybe the former.

Anyway, fish are doing well, eating fine, extremely inquisitive. Certainly no need for dithers. I love this little tank and over the coming weeks, as the java moss takes hold, this tank should look rather nice.

I have also found aquatic plants (if there are enough of them, compared to few enough fish to start with) will almost instantly cycle a tank.
When I first moved to Panama, and picked up a tank, before adding fish, I collected wild aquatic plants, and let them acclimate about a month more before adding any fish.
Even though I constantly tested, the tank never went through a noticeable ammonia up, down phase, or nitrite up down phase, and because the plant load has increased steadily into a heavy swathe, it has never shown any noticeable nitrate, or done so, in 3 years.