My Rams have Spawned!!! Q's Now

I had a gold male and blue female that spawned recently too. In a couple days they ate the eggs. I think I read it takes 5 days for freeswimming, or is that 5 days until wigglers? I can't remember and it seemed I read a lot of differing info. Some said wigglers in 24 hours and others said wigglers in 5 days and another 5 for freeswimming. I don't know whats right so I am also interested in the answer.

My male just switched females and it looks like they are ready to spawn again. The spot they chose is not good for viewing this time.

never spawned rams, but with my apistos the eggs hatch in ~2 days. They go free swimming about 5-6 days after hatching. A little over a week from eggs being laid to proud momma parading them around the tank.

Your rams will most likely eat the eggs/wiggler/fry because......well that's what rams do the first few times they spawn. I would just let them keep at it untill they get it right. If you get impatiant, then you can pull the eggs and hatch them artificially, but watching cichlid parental behavior is half the fun for me. They will continue to spawn repeatedly every 2-4 weeks. Feed the female a varied diet of frozen foods to condition her in-between spawns.

You can try and raise some in a breeding net, but if you're serious, go buy a 10g tank, cheap heater, and a sponge filter. Leave the tank bare-bottomed, do weekly or bi-weekly water changes and feed baby brine shrimp (live is best but frozen can be used also) in small quantities as many time a day as you can.

Good Luck and Congrats. Let us know what the ratio of blue to gold babies turns out to be.

Ram eggs usually take from 2-3 days depending on the temp of the water and probably some other things. You can try removing the eggs if you don't want to risk them eating them before they hatch...or you can wait until after they hatch and the parents have collected them all into a small divit in the gravel/substrate. It's pretty easy to syphon them out at that point. If the eggs are on something that can be easily removed from the tank, that's an easy way to get them out too.

If you take the eggs out and hatch them in another tank/container make sure you go buy some methylene blue. It will keep the eggs from being attatched for fungus. I didn't think my angel fish eggs needed to be treated, but I found out the hard way. If you remove the eggs from the parents, I would add methylene blue to combat the fungus. Good luck with the rams.