Hi all,
Unfortunately I just lost a beautiful female German Blue Ram after laying eggs two hours ago. Here are the details - hopefully someone with a greater wealth of knowledge could help me figure out what went wrong:
I bought a male and female German Blue Ram from the fish store this past Saturday. After staying in quarantine for a few days and looking extremely healthy (and particularly fond of each other), I decided to move them over to my main tank. They are in there with 4 Corydoras, 7 neon tetras, 4 pengiun tetras, 4 rasboras, and 2 otocinclus. The temperature is 78 F. They are very healthy looking as well as all the other fish in the tank. Water parameters are great.
I fed at about 9oclock when male and female both ate. She was looking very pink and round in the belly. Not surprisingly a few minutes later, I noticed about 50 eggs they were guarding. If I were to guess, they are about 6-8 months old and this is most likely their first spawn. When the cory's got near the nest the male was very defensive and chased them aggressively. I did not see any of this aggression towards the female as they were taking turns watching the eggs and showing common breeding behaviour.
I turned off the light and two hours later checked back on them with a flashlight when I saw the female floating at the top of the water. I turned on the light and she was sporadically swimming around knocking into things and a few minutes later, she died.
I have two ideas as to what happened but I am no expert. Did the male end up killing her? He is still guarding the eggs now. Was she weak because she used all of her energy on laying the eggs?
Any suggestions are appreciated as I am very disappointed this happened.
Thank you
Unfortunately I just lost a beautiful female German Blue Ram after laying eggs two hours ago. Here are the details - hopefully someone with a greater wealth of knowledge could help me figure out what went wrong:
I bought a male and female German Blue Ram from the fish store this past Saturday. After staying in quarantine for a few days and looking extremely healthy (and particularly fond of each other), I decided to move them over to my main tank. They are in there with 4 Corydoras, 7 neon tetras, 4 pengiun tetras, 4 rasboras, and 2 otocinclus. The temperature is 78 F. They are very healthy looking as well as all the other fish in the tank. Water parameters are great.
I fed at about 9oclock when male and female both ate. She was looking very pink and round in the belly. Not surprisingly a few minutes later, I noticed about 50 eggs they were guarding. If I were to guess, they are about 6-8 months old and this is most likely their first spawn. When the cory's got near the nest the male was very defensive and chased them aggressively. I did not see any of this aggression towards the female as they were taking turns watching the eggs and showing common breeding behaviour.
I turned off the light and two hours later checked back on them with a flashlight when I saw the female floating at the top of the water. I turned on the light and she was sporadically swimming around knocking into things and a few minutes later, she died.
I have two ideas as to what happened but I am no expert. Did the male end up killing her? He is still guarding the eggs now. Was she weak because she used all of her energy on laying the eggs?
Any suggestions are appreciated as I am very disappointed this happened.
Thank you
