German Rams laid eggs, now fight :/

Mikaila31

Give them time. Pairs break up and reform pretty often. They are likely still in spawning mode even though the eggs got eaten. Give them a few days and they should calm down.

djrodan

We have a 55gal amazon biotope and a little over a month ago we added some beautiful German blue rams we got from a local cichlid wholesaler. We were stunned to find out that they are even german bred! The fish were sooo healthy and beautiful we couldn't be more pleased! Since they were in a cramped tank in the warehouse, there was no pairing going on.

We already owned one female electric Blue Ram, so we decided to get 1 male and 2 females, hoping that the male would pair with one of the 3 females.

A little while after they were introduced the male and one of the females were sticking together, bullying the electric blue female. The electric blue secluded herself in a corner of the tank with horrible coloring, then ended up dying.

So at this point there was the male and female that stuck together, and the other oddball female.

At this point I was assuming that the two had paired up, swimming around together with awesome coloration. Soon after I saw the two picking at a rock, eggs were laid. The oddball female was quite inquisitive with them and kept swimming over to look, and when either of the pair saw her they would chase the fish away super aggressively. The next morning the eggs were gone, and the pair still were bullying the oddball female. It was at this point that we removed the oddball female and gave her to a friend down the street where she lives currently.

After we removed the oddball female, the "pair" now split up. The male will chase away the female when he sees her. He sticks to one area of the tank, chasing away the tetras and corys, and anything else he sees. The female shows terrible color now, the male shows normal color.

Not sure what to do at this point. We still have access to the oddball female we removed, as well as our friends tank to adopt any fish if need be. What if we reintroduced the third female? What if we removed the female that laid eggs and then reintroduced her to the tank again after some time, would the male notice that they were the same fish as before? What if we introduced a new male?

This is my first time owning rams, and its like watching a soap opera!

djrodan

I posted this pretty after the fact. It's actually been almost 3 weeks since they've been just of the two of them.
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djrodan

heres some pics of them:

Instagram

Instagram

(ps the iphone camera sucks)

snoopy65

I would rearrange the decor in the tank and reintroduce the other female into the tank, leaving both the current female and the male in there. There is the chance you removed the wrong girl and rams choose their own mate. Just because ther is a male and female in thee it may end up they don't like each other. If you have another spawn, don't remove anyone. Chasing away predators real or perceived is part of them becoming good parents. The eggs being gone is no surprise as it does take many times for a pair to get it right and they will eat any nonviable egg. Hope this helps

djrodan

Believe it or not, when I came home from work today they were back together and showing great colors!

The females belly was pretty rosy also, so we shall see


We recently did drastically rearrange the decor, and the male has been more territorial than ever lately. Maybe he felt uneasy about where he was and didn't want to be bothered by anyone, including his own female. Does that sound logical?

I'll keep with some updates.