View Full Version : Blue Rams dying... HELP!
I've had my two Rams in my tank for nine days. All seemed well until yesterday when they didn't eat and were hiding. Today they are lying on the gravel, pale and breathing heavily.
All my tank levels are fine, however the pH is 7.6/7.8 - high for Rams. Is this the underlying problem? Or is there something I can do to help them. I know they are delicate fish who prefer slightly acidic conditions. I was hoping they would acclimate.
Any insight would be appreciated. It's breaking my heart to see them suffer.
BTW, I do a 20% water change weekly and they have very peaceful tankmates - three guppies and one dwarf gourami. I set this tank up for the Blue Rams. I really, really want them!
Thanks in advance!:(
I doubt it is your ph. Unless the fish were wild caught they were probably bred and have always lived in a ph similar to yours. Mine is in a tank with a ph of 7.5 and is fine. What are "all of your levels"? Ammonia, nitrite and nitrate. Sounds like you got sick fish from the store if the rest of your fish are fine. Maybe a parasite. Lying on the gravel pale and breathing heavy sounds like poisoning though. Check the ammonia and nitrite.
Nitrite = 0
Ammonia = 0
Nitrate = 0-20
KH = 120 (ideal)
GH = 75 (soft)
pH = 7.6/7.8
I called the LFS and the two remaining Rams which haven't sold yet are doing fine. I do know that they added a pH buffer (6.8) to their tank. In fact they recommended that I do the same, but I did not. They had them for 1.5 weeks before I bought them. One has kicked the bucket and the other has maybe 10 minutes.:(
If you don't think it's the pH would you recommend giving it another shot from a different store???
a_free_bird73
07-20-2003, 11:25 PM
The fact that you have had them for nine days and they were fine until now suggests a problem with your tank is more likely.. out of curiosity, how long has this tank been running and how long has the other fish been there?
This is true, it does sound like a tank problem. I am out of ideas. If all of the other fish are fine then it couldn't be a chemical. No ammonia, nitrite and I really don't think the ph would kill them, especially that fast. They would have adjusted after nine days. I'm stumped.:confused:
scholar
07-21-2003, 8:51 AM
Rams need below PH of 7. Otherwise sooner or later, they die. regardless of whateveranyone says. I am sorry to say that I have done it. :(
Scholar, I' have a pair of Blue Rams and a pair of Gold Rams for over year in 7.6 water and they are doing very well, they even spawn every few weeks.
Alex
Scholar, unless your rams were wild caught they have probably never lived in a ph much below 7. In fact they probably lived their whole lives at right around 7 or above.
My tank has been set up for nine+ weeks now - cycled (so I thought) at five weeks. All the other fish are doing great. I cycled with the three Guppies and added the Gourami at six weeks, the Rams at eight. I'm curious, a_free_bird73 (and everyone else), what your insight is. Did I introduce them to my tank too soon? I just hope we can come up with an obvious cause so I can prevent this from happening again. Thanks everyone!
Aderynglas
07-21-2003, 6:39 PM
Lisa,
How long did you take to acclimatise the rams to your water?
If the LFS had water at pH6.8 and yours tests out at pH7.8 then there was quite a difference between your water and the water they were used to in the shop.
The pH scale is logarithmic and means that each point on the scale is 10x the amount of the point before it eg. pH7 is 10x more alkaline than pH6 :eek:.
For the rams who might already have been affected by being shipped it just might have been too much :(.
How fresh are your water tests?? if they are nearing their use by date then they may not be giving you good accurate readings, or they may not be very accurate in the first place, some tests are occasionally found to be faulty. It might be a good idea to take a sample of tank water in a clean jar to the same LFS and ask if they would test it to check whether your test results match theirs - I occasionally do this myself, just to check the accuracy of my water tests :)
Are you absolutely sure that the gourami was not hassling the rams? those long feelers could spook a pair of rams who wouldn't necessarily recognise him as harmless, especially if they couldn't see him at night. I keep rams myself and personally wouldn't keep them with gouramis.
Finally, guppies usually require harder water than Rams, if you're going to keep them together, one or the other is going to be in water that they don't thrive in.
Just my 0.2p worth, don't know if there's anything helpful there, but hope so :)
Regards
Polly
I acclimated the Rams for 30 mins.
I'm surprised to hear your opinion on not having them with Dwarf Gouramis. My research has suggested that these two species do VERY well together. That's why I bought the Gourami! There was no evidence of the Gourami roughing them up, although there's no way to be "absolutely sure" about their behavior at nighttime. The Gourami pretty much ignored them. The Rams were very spunking and out and about until the last couple days.
I purchased all the water testing kits last month. I would imagine they're fine. The ammonia had tested at 1.0 at some point during cycling and the nitrite higher as well, so I'd imagine the tests are working. I'll follow your advice and have the LFS check my water as well. My hunch is that it's the change in pH given the LFS used a buffer. I think you're right on.
skeletalmachine
07-22-2003, 1:52 PM
My girlfried had a similiar problem with rams dying off in the same manner about a week after getting them. She takes very good care of the tank, never missing a weekly water change. I suspect disease was the culprit as a ram that had already been in the tank for several months died off along with the new pair. I have heard similiar stories to yours several times. I believe rams may be rather fragile when it comes to disease and would suggest quarrantining them for several weeks before adding them to a tank. Well, at least that is what I will try next time I buy rams.
So are you suggesting that the Rams had a disease? Or is my tank diseased?
a_free_bird73
07-23-2003, 6:08 PM
Lisa, I don't think you mentioned anything about the temperature in your tank and if it is fluctuating too much! I think you need to eliminate to obvious before you assume that it is disease related.
When you change water, do you use a dechlorinator and do you add cold water to a warm tank!
PCDawg
07-24-2003, 1:06 PM
I just recently had a ram that died as well for no known reason....
I kept it with 2 dwarf puffers, a dwarf gourami, a shoal of neons, amano shrimps and small cories.....
Its a male and has been very active since it the day before it died. I had it for about 5 weeks....
Amonia and nitrites at 0 and nitrates at .25 pH around 7.2
I got about 4 neons and i decided to get more.....when i brought home 6 more neons, the next day the ram kept hiding and staying in place......it seemed stressed...at what i dunno..it got along fine with my gourami and puffers ....
the next day it died.....no signs of nipped fins or diseases on its body....i dunno whether it was stress from the neons
Just weird......its a planted tank with plenty of hiding places for them....
Perhaps they are very fragile and something made it sick but i cant figure out what it is
"When you change water, do you use a dechlorinator and do you add cold water to a warm tank! "
The tank is consistently at 82 degrees. No I do NOT add cold water to my tank! I'm pretty precise at matching the temp to the tank. And yes, I use a dechlorinator.
skeletalmachine
07-24-2003, 8:25 PM
I am just suggesting disease as that is the only thing I can think of that would have caused the rams death in my situation, which is very similiar to yours. It seems to me that rams are very easily stressed and therefor very susceptable to disease.
dundadundun
01-25-2009, 11:37 AM
i don't think adding cold water is an issue. let me explain. in the wild, when it rains fish get a quick rush of cooler, fresher water... in many species this has proven to induce spawning. i do think adding it fast enough to change the overall temp of your tank would be very detrimental. i de-chlorinate my water and let it age for a week, sometimes 2. i do not use a heater at all during this process. i do use a power head to stir the de-chlorinater and break up film prior to using. i do water changes 1 - 5gal bucket at a time. i place the bucket above the fish tank and use an airline tube to siphon the fresh water into my tank. usually i can find at least 5 fish playing in the cooler stream of water created by this method. my guppies, oto, sae's, and even farlowella seem to really enjoy "swimming upstream in the fresh cool water". but once again it does not affect the temp of my tank at all, so there is always an easy retreat!
excuzzzeme
01-25-2009, 11:48 AM
Rams have been known to die of no apparent reason. It is often explained off as PH, disease, etc when in reality a true cause may never be known. I bought 4 rams all at the same time. Two died at 3 weeks and the other two are still fine today. The tank has been up for 2 years and is well-established. They ate well and then just keeled over. Just keep an eye on the others and tank mates.
My tank PH is 6.4 0,0,20
evelyn80
01-25-2009, 12:24 PM
:iagree: with excuzzme. had 2 blue rams in my 35 and 1 just randomly died for no reason :confused: i have 2 girls now though and they are healthy as ever! my pH is 7.6 to. rams are picky eater at the start to i know i had to get mine brine shrimp pellets and mix it with flakes b4 theyd even touch the flakes! mabye it is a food issue? wat did u feed them and how often?
KarlTh
01-25-2009, 1:36 PM
Forget pH; IME the main cause of rams being easily pushed over the edge is hard water.
KarlTh
01-25-2009, 1:38 PM
Rams need below PH of 7. Otherwise sooner or later, they die. regardless of whateveranyone says. I am sorry to say that I have done it. :(
See my last. Fish are largely insensitive to pH. If your rams died in water with a pH above 7, it was the (probably) accompanying hard water that did it. It's always TDS (normally present as hard water) which is the factor, but pH gets fingered.
lucy42083
01-25-2009, 4:13 PM
Has no one noticed this thread is almost 6 years old??
evelyn80
01-25-2009, 7:29 PM
oh boy 6 years! thats gotta be a record 4 a bump!
naturegrl
01-28-2009, 10:08 AM
Well even though this is 6 years old, just in case a prospective ram owner is browsing, I wanted to add my two cents.
I have German Blue Rams that live in very hard water. High gh, kh, and tds. Ph 8.3 then (lower now due to adding co2). I was reluctant to try them given everything I had read about them being so fragile, picky eaters and need soft water/low ph. My experience has been nothing like this. I bought mine from my lfs who had them for about a week and a half. From what I understand, they came from a breeder in chicago which has similar water params to mine. Maybe that's what made all the difference. Even though they came from the same city water source I still acclimated them over 2 hours in a darkened room. They're healthy, eat like pigs and the two that paired up within a week of bringing them home, spawn every couple of weeks. Granted, I've only had mine for a few months, but they are doing great in my planted community tank.
So I do think it's possible to keep them in params outside what is said to be the neccessity for them. I waited until I could find some that came from water closest to mine so I wouldn't have to monkey around with the water chemistry.