# Misnomer: Blue Rams



## Will (Jul 24, 2008)

_*Microgeophagus ramirezi*_, also known as; Ram, Butterfly, or Ramirez's Dwarf Cichlid. For such a popular fish it confuses me why the "German" designation has stuck to the name of this fish, like ich to a clown loach. A South American Native fish, named after Manuel Ramirez, one of the first collectors and importers of _Microgeophagus ramirezi_ for the aquarium trade, and first thought to be an Apistograma sp. was later moved to and from various genera including: Papiliochromis, Pseudoapistogramma and Pseudogeophagus, before ending up as Microgeophagus, which is included in subfamily Geophaginae.

This fish gained quick popularity amongst German fishkeepers, and before long were being selectively bred for their beautiful blues with rainbow highlights. Exported to other parts of the world, under the coined name "German Blue Rams". Now with these much hardier and much bluer captive strains spread about the world, fishkeepers everywhere were breeding them, and soon followed Asian fish farming Countries for mass wholesale export for the species. Germans had long been known for their quality fish and selective breeding, and so the Asian Fish farms continued to export under "German" as well as creating other variants such as Gold, longfin & Balloons, and most recently the Electric Blue variant.

Now almost all, or say a vast majority of the Rams available in Canada are bred locally, good news for their wild caught counterparts acclimate to captivity very poorly. With a fish that lives only 2-3 years, and breeds regularly, how much of that ancient original German strain still exists in our Rams today? Hard to say, should we be calling them Canadian Blue rams yet? Nay! Just call them for what they are, _the magnificent *Ram*!_


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## j0209 (Nov 27, 2010)

Electrci blue rams are @ BA Vaughan


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## Kerohime (Jan 10, 2011)

Thanks for the info! That was quite interesting... 

I would LOVE to get a pair like that in the picture... wow!


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## scrt69 (Jan 10, 2010)

BA @ Newmarket also has the electric blue. They also have a decent amount of lg blues still avail as well. the mini's have the sign taken off them, but they still have a couple of them left.


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## Arkerone (Mar 15, 2011)

j0209 said:


> Electrci blue rams are @ BA Vaughan


All male though


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