Help sexing my Ram

[cohazard]

It takes some time for rams to pair off, they need to mature and develop their colors (that's how they tell each other they're ready to spawn).

I agree with the others, you deffinitely have a young female (only females have that bright pink belly). Depending on your tank size, I would say only one male, but if you have a large enough aquarium (I'd say 35-40g's) then you can have two pairs.

Also, rams don't live up to the reputation cichlids have for being good parents. But that doesn't necessarily mean that a pair can't become good parents with enough practice.


HTH,
Serg

 

[TrickyD119]

Should I get 1 or 2 males?

Depending on how young they are, you might not even be able to tell.

Ideally if you can sex them, get 2 or 3 females to every male, but if you can't because they are not developed enough, don't worry about it. Just get the group and watch their daily activities. As SoCalSunset pointed out, it might take a while. They should be sexually mature by 3 or 4 months, but it could be slightly longer.

As for how many pairs you can keep, it varies, but the best advice I've heard is one mature pair for every 2' of horizontal tank space (basically a 48" tank before you can get away with 2 mature pair).

 

[Emg]

Pretty little girl...and very young.

Rams are VERY prone to stress out during the acclimation period. When you get your other ones....acclimate them VERY slowly to thier new home. Take plenty of time adding just a bit of the tank water at a time to the bag. Out of 5 rams that I purchased I lost only 1 within an hour of bringing it home. The others stressed out big time but adjusted fairly well after a bit of time....and I introduced them very slowly...

They have been fine since and I have had them for about a month and a half....one pair spawned twice and I am raising a batch of babies right now. So much for them being hard to breed....lol...

As they get older, the males develope longer pointier fins and thier bodies are more elongated, where the females are generally of a more round shape. Here's a couple of picks...one of a male, the other pic has 3 females...

Females have rosey bellies....males never do from what I have learned from breeders of rams.

 

[Chris Drake]

I took nearly an hour and a half to aclimate them after reading in several places how careful you needed to be with them. I only live 2 minutes walk from the lfs that I got them from so I would of thought it would have been less stressful for them. I read somewhere else that they can be already pretty stressed out from shipping to the lfs etc, so I put it down to that.

 

[Red Tailed Wonder]

she is definately a female.Male rams have a more pronounced dorsal fin.

 

[Red Tailed Wonder]

EMG are those your rams.

 

[Emg]

Yes, those are my rams.

I have learned that you really can't tell from the dorsel until they get older. I'm not sure how old mine are but the differences between the male and females have really become more pronounced since I've had them. When I first got them I had a very hard time telling whether I had a male or not. Now it's easy to tell because his fins and coloring are different.