Ram Cichlid Lost colour!

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mukundam123

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Jan 6, 2008
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Sunderland
Hi,
Woke up this morning to find that my Male Ram cichlid has 'lost' his colour. It came back for a bit, but once again he's paler, and his dark spot has become faint. Apart from that he's fine....swimming well etc. The female's grand (although they don't seem to be a pair).
Anyone got any ideas why this may be? I've only have them for about a month! The LFS said that they were juvenilles, so I don't think it's old age..??!

Cheers
 
Is the Ram mixed w/ ACs? They could be stressing it.
 
Yeh, I've got two angel's (don't think they're a pair...how can you tell?), a redtail shark, 2 pai guppies, 2 plecs and 3 cory's (one died this morning!)
I've been having quite a bit of trouble with the tank....a lot of fish keep dying! The peppered cory was one, and I bought 10 tiger barbs a few weeks back - lost one every night consistently before I got a chance to take the remaining survivors back to the LFS. They tested my water, and I've got no ammonia or nitrites! Not sure whats wrong with it...!? Any suggestions on what to do?

Thanks
 
Rams like low ph (6.5 or lower) and soft water, with high temps (84-86) I had thought that temp to high, so kept mine at 80, had poor color and upped it to 84 and they brighten up. I also noticed they are very shy tiny fish, they are gonna stay small, (adults might get 2 inches max) so be careful what you keep them with. They also like a heavily planted tank. I kept mine alone in the tank, they seemed much more happy. I would consider keeping them with just a dwarf catfish or dwarf algae eater of some type. If they stay in high african ph they will wither and die. Just a heads up on that.
 
mukundam123;1595903; said:
Yeh, I've got two angel's (don't think they're a pair...how can you tell?), a redtail shark, 2 pai guppies, 2 plecs and 3 cory's (one died this morning!)
I've been having quite a bit of trouble with the tank....a lot of fish keep dying! The peppered cory was one, and I bought 10 tiger barbs a few weeks back - lost one every night consistently before I got a chance to take the remaining survivors back to the LFS. They tested my water, and I've got no ammonia or nitrites! Not sure whats wrong with it...!? Any suggestions on what to do?

Thanks
Click to expand...

none of those are africans... I would post in general section to see if you can find more help...
 
As said they all aren't africans. It sounds serious though... I would actually just pull them and put them in there own 10 for now... (Try breeding them that way.) I have mine with my apistos at the moment, and well they are fairly aggressive...

As for temps, well I don't keep it above room temp ~75, though I likely will bring it up to 80 now that I am going to try to breed them. Just means I need to move the apistos out.

Just curious, I realize you say the water parameters are good and I believe you, just wondering how often you clean the tank, what size the tank is, food you feed, if you did anything new to the tank recently. Anything you can think of may help.
 
Ah sorry about posting in the wrong section. I didn't know they were from S.America until today! Its a fairly new (few months) tank, and I clean it (mix the debris on the surface of the gravel and syphon it out) about once a fortnight. It's a 4ft tank to which I've just fitted an external with peat moss, ceramic rings and carbon. It also has an undergravel filter which I was using until today. Have one peice on medium size bog wood (want to get some more), a few rocks and a fair amount of plants (about half -half of the tank). I feed them frozen bloodworm in the morning and evening, a maybe a little bit of flake/pellets in the afternoon (for the angels and guppies, as the angels usually eat most of the bloodworm, and the rams enjoy the pellets! - I read that to try anf get them to breed, you should feed little but often, which is why I'm feeding 3 times a day....is this right??) Not done anything new as far as I know. I asked the LFS and they said that sometimes they lose colour, and regain it when they try to impress the female....not too convinced though. Any thoughts?
Cheers
 
i know its the wrong section. but- pics?:)
sounds like a nice tank

good size too
 
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