aah my rams keep fighting!

[Hans]

sup yall i just brought home 3 blue rams last night, there were 3 left and i wanted to be safe that i got at least one pair, i think i might have a female and 2 males, its so hard to tell when they are young, anyways, they wont stop pecking at each other and kissing on the lips, is that mating ritual or are these guys just criminaly insane? i thought they were supposed to be nice!

 

[Hans]

also, these are the kind of blue rams they are, but i dont know what kind it is, they are not the german ram, which makes finding info on them quite hard! anyone else have the regular blue ram or wahtever you call them? how do you sex em!

 

[cattlegrid_79]

Sexing Blue Rams is fairly easy. The second ray of their dorsal fin is extended on the males, and when they grow older the 4th ray will also grow to be extended.

I used to have a few of these. Unfortunately, I had one dominant male who would harass not just the other rams but all the other fish in the tank, including my 2 adult angels who are about 10 times the size of him. So, I had to take him out of that set-up. He did actually harass a female to death once.

I too bought these fish on the understanding that they were peaceful little fish. Mainly they are, just some males can be dominant like this.

If you want to keep more than one, it is best to have at least 2, maybe 3 females to each male. This cuts down on the aggressive behaviour (or at least spreads it out so not just one female kops it)

Hope this helps.

 

[Hans]

their rays arent extended yet, they are pretty small, but one definatnly has less black blotches on it, and more blue sparkles around teh dot

 

[cattlegrid_79]

It may be quite difficult to tell if they are still young. Or you may have 3 of the same sex, so you can't tell any difference.

From your picture, the main one in the centre may be male, but the picture is not really clear enough to tell definitely.