Rams Mating?

Hi there,

I just became the proud owner of a set of 4 Rams, 2 Bolivian (I think, no red eyes and they were listed as "Red Rams" and 2 German Blue's. I've got them all happily living together in my 33 gallon with a ton of hiding spots. Anyways, as I was sitting here perusing the forums I happened to look over at my tank and saw the strangest behavior coming from my German fella's.

I looked over and they were sitting there out in the open, the daylights are off and they're under the moonlight... I'm not quite sure how exactly to explain it but if you've ever seen a cat rubbing up against something well, that's sort of how it looked. They'd rub a bit and then chase each other around and then rub some more. It sure as heck wasn't fighting and I don't think it was a type of "dominance behaviour" so that leaves me with mating.

Now when my wife had grabbed them (they were my valentine's day goodies) she had hoped for a male and female of each but despite a bunch of research, neither of us could tell but maybe this behaviour will shed some light if I can confirm what I think I saw.

My question of course is "is this mating?" or is this just stress related behaviour as they haven't even been in the tank for a week yet. None of my fish have shown any other signs of stress. Everybody is coloured right up and seems to be really happy, they all eat like little pigs and even after less then a week if I come close to the tank at feeding time they all swarm up to the front and go nuts until the "food from the sky" comes tumbling down.

Anyways, I'm starting to ramble here but if anyone can confirm that this is mating behavior or something else that would be great!!

Cheers

Haven't seen any blowing on surfaces yet but i've been working some pretty long hours so my time in front of the tank has been limited. They do tend to "flash" quite a bit (if by flashing you mean stretching all the fins out and generally trying to look impressive!!).

Thanks for the pointers on the oviposter, that's one tip I hadn't come across when sexing these guys. Time will tell if they are going to spawn or not. I personally wouldn't mind if they don't as I have nowhere to raise the fry and am a little concerned about them becoming hyper-aggressive if they do. Although at this point even the raspbora's aren't intimidated by them. My wife on the other hand has gotten rather excited about the prospect of baby ram's running all over the place.