Sick German Blue Ram???

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Inexcess21

Registered Member
Oct 22, 2007
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Hello!

I am a newbie and have just started a 20 gallon freshwater tank w/ 3 danios, a barb, a raphael catfish and 4 german blue rams. We thought we had a male and female, but then realized they were both males so bought 2 females to try to pair them off. One female colored up very quickly and her belly got really red and she was hanging around the male a lot, so we thought they were a happy couple. But it has been a few days and she just disappeared and didn't come out even to eat. Now she is laying on the rocks and sort of panting. The male has been poking at her, but she doesn't respond. Is she sick, or maybe just laying eggs??? Her belly seems to be bloated, too. She still has a lot of color, so we are confused. I am reluctant to use any medication, change the water etc. b/c everyone else in the tank seems to be doing fine.

Oh, and all the tests (Ph, amonia, nitrate, nitrite etc.) have come back fine.

Does anybody have any input????
 
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loki993

AC Members
Jun 11, 2007
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im sure someone else with a bit more experience will chime in, but ill try and apply my limited experience with them. when you say youre waters fine what do you mean?? what are youre numbers, fine to you may be bad to someone else.

rams are very sensitive to water quality. ive tried them twice...1 the first time and 2 the next. all died within a month and my water was fine also. ph was running around 7.0, nitrites at 0 nitrates at or a bit above 20...this may have been a problem. you need to try to keep youre nitrates as low as possible with rams, under 10ppm ideally. also from what ive gathered, from a lot of people on this board and others is that rams from the fish store are not very good to begin with. most come from asia and are loaded with horemones to make them color up so they look nice in the tank what you come to the fish store. this weakens them and they are very prone to disease and parasites at this time. I believe this is why the ones I had died.

as for what you can do about the fish, I really dont know, hopefully someone else will come in with a solution, I didnt have any luck trying to bring mine back once they got sick.
 
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Inexcess21

Registered Member
Oct 22, 2007
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Sick blue rams - here are the parameters:

NH3/NH4: 0, NITRITE: 0, NITRATE 10ppm, Ph: 7.2, GH: 76ppm, KH: 55 ppm, Temp: 78 Deg F.
 
Lupin

Lupin

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Sep 21, 2006
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Lupin Information Super Highway/Goldfish Informati
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When did you start the tank? When did you buy the fish? Blue rams are not easily adapted to newly setup tanks so this could be the reason why. How did you acclimate the fish?
 
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loki993

AC Members
Jun 11, 2007
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params definitely look good.

When did you start the tank? When did you buy the fish? Blue rams are not easily adapted to newly setup tanks so this could be the reason why. How did you acclimate the fish?
Click to expand...
not to hijack, good info for all though, but im definitely getting more rams in the future and id like to know about whats considered a newly setup tank, why its bad for them and proper acclimation of them also. all the other fish were simply floated for 30-45 minutes and let go, theyve all done fine. is there anything special beyond that for the rams?
 
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Inexcess21

Registered Member
Oct 22, 2007
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We had the tank set up a little over a month. We had some zebra danios and a barb and the catfish to keep up the bio load and did daily testing of all water parameters (my husband was a chemistry major) - everything looked fine (see above). We had the two males for about a week, then added the two females last weekend (4 days ago). Sadly the sick female died last night. But immediately after we took her out of the tank, the rest of the rams developed white spots that I believe are ich!! The dead female did not have ANY spots on her. Hmmmmm.

Anyway, we moved the Raphael cat to a 55 gallon that we are still cycling (it is close, and we hope he is hardy enough to survive it) and kept the rest in the 20 gal. and will start ich treatment today (at half strength, I guess?? Due to the ram's sensitivity??)

I read that the cat can't handle ich treatment, so we are just hoping for the best with him (he doesn't have spots, and neither do the danios or the barb)

Also, we did acclimate them as instructed (min. 45 minute float time, dark tank, then run the tank water slowly down the side of the bag). Did I miss anything? We have a friend who has had tanks all his life and he got 2 rams from the same store and they died in a few days. I guess we won't shop there any more.

Thanks for your help! I will be back w/ update in a few days. Any more input/suggestions would be welcome.
 
Star_Rider

Star_Rider

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Dec 21, 2005
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do the white spots appear like the fish have been sprinkled with salt?
ich can manifest in the gills and not be seen..it is possible the ram had this when you got it.

78 is a bit cool for blue rams..bump the temp..if it's ich you can slowly raise the temp to a more desirable 82-84..tis will spped up the life cycle of ich..you can dose salt too unless you have inverts and plants.
you may be in the early stages of ich..it will get worse if you don't treat and it is ich.

if it were the rams alone I would suggest bumping the temp to 86+
the blue rams can handle that temp...the ich can't.

if you do this add an airstone as this temp water will not hold as much dissolvedO2.

rams tend to better in established tanks..just not tanks that are cycling.

source has been a problem with rams and other fish..if they come from some asian importers/breeders.. some have been treated with hormones.
this leads to health problems for these fish .
 
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