# I am breeding GBR and EBRs



## bettaforu

I have just started to keep these and am enjoying them very much.

I have the one pair of Longfinned German Blue Rams, that have given me two spawns up to now within one month of getting them from a breeder in the US.

I didn't have enough live food for the fry I hatched and they all died, and the spawn I left with the parents they ended up eating them after 2 days of watching them (I think the eggs fungused though as most turned white) so I cannot say for certain that they ate the eggs anyway or because they were all already dead.

Ive talked to the breeder about how to raise the fry and he's given me good insight into what to do next time.

Now if only 2 of the EBRs would pair up....one very nice blue male (pictured)
likes the other GBR female I have in the tank with them, so maybe this will lead to something.
She laid eggs on a flat driftwood surface but they got eaten.

From what Ive been told it looks like I will have to hatch out any eggs that get laid as these EBRs are notorious for egg eating.
Pic of my best male EBR when he gets showing off he flashes turq x aqua and it just radiates all over, he's awesome....but trying to get him to stay still long enough  
lucky I got this one.


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## Mykuhl

Beautiful EBR male, I may end up getting a pair from you, once you start regularly raising fry .


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## bettaforu

So I have discovered from watching my GBR pair that they are indeed egg eaters. 

I was told in advance that they might be, but I had high hopes for this pair as they seemed to be very dedicated to protecting the eggs, fanning them etc. 

Now as day 3 dawns, they have decided to eat whatever was on the rock (I'm sure I saw eyes inside the eggs, but no wigglers as yet) so this proves that I cannot trust them with eggs again.

I will be collecting the eggs after day 1 from now on and hatching them myself. Maybe I can be successful in raising them....who knows.


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## bettaforu

GBRs are alive and moving....Daddy is guarding them, and picking them up and spitting them back into the clay dish. He has moved them around 5 times now, but has settled on the clay dish at the back of the tank.

I fed a tiny bit of BBS this am, squirted it over the dish, so I think a few of them had breaky and now want to explore....Daddy doesn't LIKE this idea


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## shawn84

EBR are not great parent I find. They eat there egg all the time at day 2 and 3 after its laid. Just artificial hatch it the best way. The weird thing about my breeding trio is that the 2 F and 1 M always get ick after each spawn. Even though they are in a tank by them self.


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## bettaforu

Yes the breeder did tell me he's never managed to have any of his EBR hatch out live babies, so Im prepared to do the artificial hatching on those.
Just need to get one of the pairs to match up and then we are all set 


The GBR on the other hand are doing a great job so far.


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## bettaforu

I just noticed my male has ich. Is this from stress? I am upping the temp
to try to contain it...they have loads of babies so I don't want to dose the tank with meds....any suggestions?


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## nightowl1350

Not sure what temp you had them at but GBR do like it warm 84 if fine for them. They are more like discus when it comes to temps. Good luck with them. I had a pair of GBR years ago and they to ate their eggs all the time. I raised up a few of the spawns myself, but some of the ones I raised went on to be parent raisers as the people who bought them of me sent family pics.


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## bettaforu

My temp was around the 80-82F mark less at night, didn't know they liked it warmer

Ive upped the temp to 86F in the hopes it will eliminate the ich (its at 83 right now), added another airstone too. I don't want to use meds because of the fry in the tank (50+)

So far I don't see any new spots and the female doesn't have any, so I think that's a good sign, and their eating good still.


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## bettaforu

I finally managed to get a couple of pics of Mamma GBR with her brood.
right now they just look like eyes with fat bellies 
I think I have 30+ of them.


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## Bwhiskered

I have had my Electric Blue Rams look after their fry for several days before eating them and so do not find them any different than any other colour strain. Rams are no harder to raise than Angelfish except they like the water acid and warm like Discus. I have hundreds of German Blue and some Electric Blue in all sizes.


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## bettaforu

Ive got to come over and see your Ram setup Charlie....get some pointers.

Well my GBRs have gone and done it again....laid a pile of eggs this evening.


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## Kimchi24

are you planning on selling any of the rams when they are older? I'd love to make a EBR and GBR tank


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## bettaforu

As I cannot keep a lot of tanks going now I definitely will be selling off extra fish. That's IF I manage to get them to survive and grow them up.

I must admit I just LOVE these rams....so colorful and what an attitude 

I really like the turquoise blue color of the electrics best though


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## shawn84

I too having trouble keep the fry alive. Fry hatch but couldn't make it past 2 day. Eating seem to be an issues for me. I feed them a variety of different live food and so far none are taken very well.


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## bettaforu

My GBR pair were VERY good at taking care of the fry up to 1 week old...then something happened? I noticed the male wasn't as attentive, leaving the female to herd them....then I noticed not so many were around
her either and some of the babies were off in the other side of the tank in the mosses...parents on the other side 

Then yesterday I noticed both parents were off in one corner picking at the clay dish and she had a big RED belly! No babies in sight 

I believe they wanted to spawn again and ate the fry!

They have now laid another batch of eggs, so this time I am ready 
I will watch them carefully and let them do their thing, but as soon as the babies are swimming good and looking more like a baby than a Y with eyes, I will trap all of the babies and put them into a newly setup tank for them to
be raised by me.

Hopefully the parents can go on a spawn again, and I can continue to feed the baby rams.

I was told they might become territorial when they wanted to spawn again, but didn't think they would eat all the week old babies 

I believe they did. I am still putting some walter worms in the moss in the hopes that some babies escaped them, but don't hold out much hope...I think they hunted them down and got them all.


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## bettaforu

OK we had another spawn, and the funniest thing happened.

I watched them tend to the eggs, saw a few were fungused and then the next day all were gone. The male was again at the front of the tank hovering, so I got the magnifier out and would you believe this, in amongst
the wigglers (they must have just hatched after he removed them) was a couple of his babies from 2 weeks ago.

They were right down in the middle of the gravel pit amongst the new wigglers and he wasn't eating them  I think they had been hiding
all along in the plants and when they saw him put the eggs in the pit, they
jumped in to hide so they wouldn't get eaten.

They've been there for a day now, and today all the babies are freeswimming! 

The parents again are tending them, keeping them corralled, so another day and I will net them all to put into the 2.5 gallon tank I have ready for them.
I want to give them at least a day or so of freeswimming so that they are
able to eat the walterworms once I remove them.


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## bettaforu

OK the pic I posted a few days ago of Mamma GBR with her brood around her head, well here's a pic of some of those babies at 23 days old.


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## bettaforu

New babies just about freeswimming today....some did the pop up and down bit, some not as adventurous, but a lot of them on my sponge filter and glass tonight, so I think by tomorrow they will be swimming around.

Looks to be 100+ of them this time


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## bettaforu

On a sad note my lovely male longfin GBR passed away yesterday.

However, he left me with 100+ babies to look after 

Its day 3 of freeswimming and they are all still alive....congregate in 2 corners of the tank, and although I don't see them actually eat, they must be eating something as they are all quite active.

I put a seeded sponge filter and some moss/floating salvinia in the tank just in case they needed to eat infusoria for the first few days, hopefully I can keep them alive.


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## nightowl1350

Good luck with them. I used microworms for my GBR when I was breeding them. One very large spawn I hatched with an spawn of angel eggs, the angels all died, but 200+ rams survived.


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## bettaforu

Thanks, so far all are doing great! I also picked up another 2 EBR females and 2 GBR males, 1 female from BWhiskered on this forum (aka Charlie)

Lovely fish, and they are doing good right now. 

Funny thing is, the longfin female didn't like the flashiest male (who was showing off to her right away) she chased him and the female so badly that I had to put them both into the EBR tank for now (will move them to their own tank soon) 

The other male she has accepted, he follows her around the tank and she's quite happy to let him, so maybe she's a fussy broad and likes the quiet ones the best


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## bettaforu

Update:

1st set of GBR longfins are doing great, growing like weeds and colors starting to show a bit on them (eye marking, orange spike on head area etc) they are also starting to bully one another.

2nd set of GBR longfins are finally 2 weeks old now and looking more like baby rams than eye with a tail  They have developed the top fin now and are finally starting to explore a bit more on their own around the tank. Up till now they were all hanging out in the corners together as a bunch, with a couple of adventurous ones taking off by themselves.

new set of eggs from the GBR longfin female x GBR regular male didn't hatch...got fungus'd. Maybe next time I will leave them in to see if the parents do a better job.


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## bettaforu

Ive just gotten another batch of eggs from the pair of GBRs, but they weren't being very careful and some of the pond snails  were eating the eggs, good ones as well as fungussed ones....so I removed the remaining eggs on the rock and its now in a hatchery....they are viable as I can see eyes developing on them.

Hopefully by tomorrow I will have some wigglers.

Im setting up a few grow out tanks for the babies now, as they are getting too big for the tank they are in.

Hope to have a few for sale before the fall auctions!


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## Rigio

bettaforu said:


> I just noticed my male has ich. Is this from stress? I am upping the temp
> to try to contain it...they have loads of babies so I don't want to dose the tank with meds....any suggestions?


Aquarium salt would help and an Indian almond leaf, however I'm not sure how this would affect the fry. A higher temp only increases the life cycle of the ich.


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## bettaforu

Unfortunately that male died! It wasn't ich, he had some injury to his head and it just got worse and one morning he was dead 

He was the father of the above babies and a beautiful longfin with gorgeous color.

The female also is longfin and she's mated with another GBR (regular finned)
and Im raising those babies right now, doing well.

Thanks for the helpful info though.


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## Rigio

bettaforu said:


> Unfortunately that male died! It wasn't ich, he had some injury to his head and it just got worse and one morning he was dead
> 
> He was the father of the above babies and a beautiful longfin with gorgeous color.
> 
> The female also is longfin and she's mated with another GBR (regular finned)
> and Im raising those babies right now, doing well.
> 
> Thanks for the helpful info though.


Sorry to hear that. Are you planning in selling your gbr when they get older? If so I'd love to come by and see them and probably buy one or two. I currently have 4 two males and two females.


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## bettaforu

Yes once they are up big enough and colored up good I will have some for sale. I don't have enough tanks to raise all of them, will keep a pair, but the rest will be for sale.


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## kevinli1021

Anna you make me jealous... your GBR is so colourful. 

I'm trying to find another nice GBR to mate with mine but before I can even do that I can't even sex my GBR because it's not truly a pure breed. (The dorsal fin is hard to read, the belly may be red or may not be red due to its natural coating, and its pelvic fin has the dark black band - but I don't know if that is a good indicator of anything).

What is your best advice?


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## bettaforu

Well Im certainly no expert on Rams, but maybe a photo of the cichlid would help id it.

I know there are others on this forum more qualified than me that could probably tell you what you have.

Could it be a Bolivian x GBR cross maybe? Ive heard that you can mix them too.


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## Hobbzchan

is your water soft? or hard?


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## bettaforu

Both. In the planted tank where those babies grew up its PH 6.5 In the grow out tanks because they aren't planted the PH is 7.4.

These rams adapt very easily to the water parameters. The original parents were bred and raised in PH 7.6 to make them more hardier. I just acclimate them over an hour whenever I have to move them from one tank to the other.


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## Hobbzchan

i heard breeding your blue rams need to be in soft water for eggs to hatch... wats the gh kh?


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## bettaforu

I hatched all 40+ eggs in PH 7.6 straight tap water! Only thing added was stresscoat for conditioner and methylene blue.

My pair bred in PH 6.5. 

I don't check GH/KH


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## Hobbzchan

hmm very interesting... gh kh measures the softness does it not? maybe the tap water is super soft there.. i hear guelph region is very soft sooo maybe thats why..?

interesting. and u mentioned that you hatched them ur self? so u took them away from the parents? do u have a picture to show how you did that? sorry i have no idea how to do it! haha


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## bettaforu

Don't have any pictures of that, but I used a 2.5 gallon tank, with a sponge filter and an airstone, and small heater. Put methylene blue in the tank till it was deep blue, and matched the temp to the main tank temp, which was 84F. I also put a piece of moss in the tank for infusoria for the fry.

Removed the stone the parents laid eggs on a few hours after they laid them, just put my hand in the tank and lifted the stone right out and into the tank. Put the airstone almost above or behind the stone so the bubbles are fanning the eggs.

After 36 hours they start to hatch and will wiggle off the stone. Once all of them are off the stone I remove it. The wigglers will be on the bottom of the tank, so you don't do anything until you see them lifting off and freeswimming.

At this time I start to feed vinegar eels (microworms I found were too big for these ram fry, they wouldn't eat them or bbs) I have a couple of snails in the tank to clean up any left overs. 

Vinegar eels don't sink like MW do, so they stay wriggling in the water and the fry hunt them. MW end up on the bottom and the fry just ignore them.
It takes them a few days to figure out what is edible. After day 2 I can usually feed some MW in with the eels and they eat them even off the bottom now....then BBS.

I change out the water 50% each day with straight tap water, until eventually the water color is no longer blue. Its messy but it helps keep them alive (takes about a week to get it clear)

My water in Burlington is PH 7.6 and is very hard. These babies were born in this water and adapt very easily to it.


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## Hobbzchan

wow! amazing! thanks for the description! i have had 2 batches of eggs being laid.. but nothing was successful.. the next 2 days the eggs would have dissappeared, which most likely would have been from snails or the parents.... im waiting to get more gbr atm since 3 of them died on me


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## Rigio

How many babies are you currently raising?


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## bettaforu

Hobbzchan contact bwhiskered on here (aka Charlie) he has some very nice EBR/GBR juvies growing up. Very reasonable price and good healthy stock!

He's in Burlington and has a fishroom that you have to see....amazing!

He'll get you started on some good quality rams, better yet if you can't make it to his place before 21st...come to the Hamilton auction in Waterdown on that Saturday and you will be able to grab fish for a steal of what you'd pay in the LFS.

Charlie always has lots of stuff at those auctions and I bet your might find rams too.

Rigio: 

I am currently raising 30+...I have 3 sets of youngsters.
5 of the almost 3 month olds, about 10 of the 2 month olds,
and 20 of the 6 weeks. 

I am seeing a range of colors in the 2 month starting now, so I know
I have both EBR/GBRs in that bunch....too early to see on the younger
ones.


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## bettaforu

quite a few of these will be going to Octoberfish auction in KW on Oct 27th.

They should be a good enough size to sell by then.


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## Rigio

bettaforu said:


> quite a few of these will be going to Octoberfish auction in KW on Oct 27th.
> 
> They should be a good enough size to sell by then.


Will you be selling them on the forum as well or just the auction?


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## bettaforu

I can sell them here too. They will all be juvies and I won't know the sex at this time or the actual final color...they all look the same right now to me.

If you are interested in any, drop me a pm.
thanks


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## bettaforu

here's a couple of new pics of the two juvies I moved in together....they are looking awfully cozy these days, picking a stuff on my glass together....


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## w_boughner

Hobbzchan said:


> hmm very interesting... gh kh measures the softness does it not? maybe the tap water is super soft there.. i hear guelph region is very soft sooo maybe thats why..?
> 
> interesting. and u mentioned that you hatched them ur self? so u took them away from the parents? do u have a picture to show how you did that? sorry i have no idea how to do it! haha


We in Guelph have very hard water do to the lime stone under us

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## w_boughner

I wonder how they would do with macaw cichlids ??? Maybe we can do a trade??

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## Graphix

Wow awesome! Your rams look great! Hope they turn out well


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## bettaforu

They just laid eggs again and this time I pulled them out and they are now in a hatchery! I felt bad about doing it as they both seemed to be diligently tending them, but as I definitely want some offspring from this pair I made the hard decision to steal this bunch of eggs out from under them.

They searched around for a while wondering where the stone went, then finally gave up.

They will get their stone back in a day or so and hopefully in 10 days they will want to try again. 

Will keep you updated on how the eggs turn out.


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