Blue ram losing color?

laeclaserind

My female blue ram's color has started to fade noticeably over the last few days, the male looks better than he ever has before (starting to develop deep red on the tips on the fins, has blue shine all over, and deep red across the eyes). However the female has started to look very hazy and her rear half (not just the tail fin) almost looks transparent, the thick black lines that used to run down her sides have grayed slightly, and the deep red that used to run across her eyes has faded noticeably. I know the females look dull in comparison to the males as far as color goes, but I've been worried as she has changed fairly rapidly (3-4 days), she still eats just fine and behaves normally (still bites my fingers if i put them on top the water), but the male has been chasing her a little more than usual (not frequently, just the occasional darting around for a second). Any advice??

laeclaserind

This evening the color returned to my ram for the most part, still not sure what the problem (if any) was, but I guess time will tell

kamazza

Sounds like the male is stressing her a bit. If the color has returned thats a good sign. He may be trying to spawn with her. They can get a little aggressive when breeding. I wouldn't worry too much just yet.

laeclaserind

There has definitely been a lot of chasing in the last few days, my bet would be spawning at this point, although I'm not very experienced with rams. Her color has begun to fade again since the other day, today she seems very stressed, swimming on a slight angle sometimes, staying near the top (away from the male), should I maybe get another female to spread the stress out, I know this is the practice with larger breeds of cichlids but I am unsure about rams

iamntbatman

Are you sure it's a female? Female German blue rams can be very difficult to find, as most of these fish are injected with hormones to bring out their colors and has the "side effect" of making most of them male. If you've got two males, the smaller one might just be stressed by being picked on by your definite male. If it was a female, I'd expect some chasing but I'd also expect the female to color up as well. Any chance you could post pictures?

laeclaserind

I can try to get some pictures, but I almost guarantee you mine are male and female and they are _not_ dyed. I have had them for about a month and they look VERY different from when I bought them, so I am fairly certain they aren't dyed, I believe if they were dyed they would have been very bright and vibrant from the day I bought them which is definitely not the case.

laeclaserind

here's a few pictures:


female on left male on right, hard to tell...in this pic they look almost the same, not the case in real life..



female alone, you can tell that her side stripe is grayed out and so is her black spot



male alone, you can see the definite blue ring around his black spot (his spot is very dark unlike the female's), you can even see the blue shimmer in this one, the red tips on his fins are hard to see... when I bought them they were both about the same as far as color goes, hard to tell apart except for the blue ring around the spot... in the past 4 or 5 days they have slowly started to become more and more different, i can tell the difference at a glance

iamntbatman

Rams aren't dyed, just injected with hormones that make the fish express more of their natural colors. The pictures are pretty blurry (aren't fish the most difficult things to photograph, ever?) so it's hard for me to get a good look. Your probable male is definitely more colorful but he's also considerably larger. It could just be that the smaller fish hasn't quite hit puberty yet.