# Bolivian Rams have Spawned



## PanzerFodder

Hi All.

I bought a couple of adult Bolivian Rams two weeks ago for my community tank, and a few days ago they started to get frisky with the other fish in the tank, I did notice that they had selected a spot on a piece of slate today, and guessed what was about to happen next!.

Anyway I had to pop out for a couple of hours tonight and when I returned home, there were eggs all over the slate, the female is fanning them and the male is guarding over her.

I understand that the eggs should hatch in about three days, and that the parents will look after them for a couple of days after that, I have no idea what to do then? Should I remove the fry to another tank, or would I be better off to leave them with their parents and let nature take its course? (Meaning they will be eaten by the other fish).
The main thing is that I do not want to risk breaking the pair bond between my Bolivians, as I have heard this can happen if you take the fry away to soon  .

I will be grateful for any advice with regards to this subject, because I have been caught completely with my pants down this time, I'm not even sure if the eggs are fertile, but they are the color of brown sugar and I can't see any white ones amongst them?.

Photo of tonights spawning (sorry about the quality! my camera is just not up to the job  )









This is my pair of Bolivians about a week ago, nice colors, I was very lucky to find these IMO  









Thanks for reading this...PanzerFodder...


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## Jackson

Congrats 

Nice pair you have great colour on them.


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## Hack02

Congrats on the spawn, Bolivans were the first fish I ever had breed for me.

It really depends on your intentions. If you want to breed them and grow out the fry, then you should move them to their own tank eventually. Let this batch go as is and move them out before the next cycle. You'll need to move the fry prior to the next spawn as there is the potential the parents will see them as a risk to the new eggs.

If you just want to enjoy the fish in the current environment then let'em go, who knows you may actually have some fry make it


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## bae

Parents will generally look after the fry for several weeks, or even longer if they don't re-spawn. You might leave a dim light on in the room so they can protect them from nocturnal fish like catfish.


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## PanzerFodder

Thanks for the tips.

If the eggs hatch (should be sometime over the weekend) I will let them stay with their parents for a few days, and then try to catch a few fry to put in a breeder net, I can then keep them in the same tank for a while why I get myself sorted out a bit.

Also found a great website with breeding details for Bolivian rams.
http://www.cichlid-forum.com/articles/breed_micro_altispinosa_pt2.php
The article says that is possible to rear Bolivian ram fry with powder feed called First Bites" which is handy as I have half a packet of this left over from when I had a guppy drop a couple of weeks ago  .
Will also have to learn about BBS soon as well, but will not bother to get any untill I am sure that I have some healthy fry.

Thanks again....PanzerFodder...


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## dl88dl

Congrats...very nice rams

If the eggs has not turn white by now then they should be fine and you should see wigglers soon. Keep us updated

BTW, what other fishy do you have in that tank with the rams?


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## PanzerFodder

dl88dl said:


> Congrats...very nice rams
> 
> If the eggs has not turn white by now then they should be fine and you should see wigglers soon. Keep us updated
> 
> BTW, what other fishy do you have in that tank with the rams?


Thanks dl88dl.

I am going to shock you all now, with regards to what other fish are in the tank with the Rams and their eggs 

10 medium size corys
2 Anglefish
3 Lemon Tetras
3 red tail phantom tetras (did have 7 of these but the seem to die on me).
4 Ottos
1 Golden spotted Ansistrus.

The poor little Rams are defending their spawn site very well against all that lot  they will even see the largest anglefish on his way if he comes to close, although I think they will be outclassed by him if the fry hatch.

Took a good look at the eggs a few minutes ago and cannot see any black spots in them, like it says should be visible by now on that website link  . will just have to wait and see what happens over over the weekend.

Cheer's...PanzerFodder...


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## dl88dl

PanzerFodder said:


> Thanks dl88dl.
> 
> I am going to shock you all now, with regards to what other fish are in the tank with the Rams and their eggs
> 
> 10 medium size corys
> 2 Anglefish
> 3 Lemon Tetras
> 3 red tail phantom tetras (did have 7 of these but the seem to die on me).
> 4 Ottos
> 1 Golden spotted Ansistrus.
> 
> The poor little Rams are defending their spawn site very well against all that lot  they will even see the largest anglefish on his way if he comes to close, although I think they will be outclassed by him if the fry hatch.
> 
> Took a good look at the eggs a few minutes ago and cannot see any black spots in them, like it says should be visible by now on that website link  . will just have to wait and see what happens over over the weekend.
> 
> Cheer's...PanzerFodder...


Before I get shocked lol how big is your tank?


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## PanzerFodder

dl88dl said:


> Before I get shocked lol how big is your tank?


It's a 37 Gallon 30" x 12" x 22" so it's getting a bit full now, although I do have a 29G (same size foot print) in the garage, that needs to be made ready so I can split the corys up a bit, as I want the C.Sterbai as a group in one tank and the C.Metae in the other one, but these are babys at the moment only about 1" long but they are very, very cute  .
I want to try breeding the corys one day, so am hoping they will grow better in their own tanks.

BTW: I am working on Ian Fullers formular of keeping 6" to 8" inches of cory to every foot of tank bottom, and mine are getting close to that now, so hence me buying another tank  (only thing is that my Wife is getting P****d at my new hobby taking over the house  ).

Cheer's....PanzerFodder...


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## dl88dl

PanzerFodder said:


> It's a 37 Gallon 30" x 12" x 22" so it's getting a bit full now, although I do have a 29G (same size foot print) in the garage, that needs to be made ready so I can split the corys up a bit, as I want the C.Sterbai as a group in one tank and the C.Metae in the other one, but these are babys at the moment only about 1" long but they are very, very cute  .
> I want to try breeding the corys one day, so am hoping they will grow better in their own tanks.
> 
> BTW: I am working on Ian Fullers formular of keeping 6" to 8" inches of cory to every foot of tank bottom, and mine are getting close to that now, so hence me buying another tank  (only thing is that my Wife is getting P****d at my new hobby taking over the house  ).
> 
> Cheer's....PanzerFodder...


I hear ya about the wife thingy lol. Even though you might be over stocked but since they breed you must be doing the right thing
Keep up the good work and keep adding more tanks until you have MTS lol or before you get MTS the wife will kick you out first lol


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## PanzerFodder

dl88dl said:


> I hear ya about the wife thingy lol. Even though you Keep up the good work and keep adding more tanks until you have MTS lol or before you get MTS the wife will kick you out first lol


Why do you think that I said the new tank is "HIDDEN" in the garage  .

*UPDATE:* My step son just said! why have all the eggs got black dots in them     .
Think that I must need to get my eyes checked, coz I still can't see them though 

Also it looks like the female eating a few, I guess that they must be the infertile one's??? hope that she does not eat the whole bloody lot of them  .

Cheer's...PanzerFodder...


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## dl88dl

PanzerFodder said:


> Why do you think that I said the new tank is "HIDDEN" in the garage  .
> 
> *UPDATE:* My step son just said! why have all the eggs got black dots in them     .
> Think that I must need to get my eyes checked, coz I still can't see them though
> 
> Also it looks like the female eating a few, I guess that they must be the infertile one's??? hope that she does not eat the whole bloody lot of them  .
> 
> Cheer's...PanzerFodder...


If he sees black dots that is great news

BTW, we are too old to see those black dots lol


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## PanzerFodder

The lights came on at 4pm today and I went over to see if the eggs were still there, but they had disappeared from the spawn site bar about half a dozen , at first I was a bit sad and thought the Corys had got to them , but then my wife noticed that there was a whole blob of wrigglers next to the air-stone , in fact as we watched them for a while the female ram is picking them up as they hatch and moving them there, guess she is using the air-stone to help circulate the water around them, bloody clever fish this one  .

The eggs have hatched faster than I expected about 40 or so hours from when they were first spawned, the water temp is 89f in this tank, so maybe the warmer water has speeded things up a bit?.

Strangely none of the other fish in the tank seem to have taken any notice of this at all, I was half expecting them to go into a feeding frenzy, like they did when the red tailed phantoms started to spray eggs all over the place just before Chrismas. 


Cheer's...PanzerFodder...


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## PanzerFodder

Hi All.

The fry are starting to swim now at 5 days old, looks like about 50 to 70 of them (not even going to try to count them yet "LOL").
They are very small and I can't really get a photo showing them in all their glory, but you can see where they are hiding under their mother.

I have set up a breeding net in the same tank and intend to catch a few to pop into it, as I want to keep some for the future, Not really sure if there is a saleable market for them?, but I just want to see if I can rear these little guys as an experiment to see if I can do it  .










Thanks for looking...PanzerFodder....


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## davidv

oh fry are always exciting! i'd probably buy a few in a couple months from ya!


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## laurahmm

what do you feed the fry btw? My angels have finally successfully raised a batch after their fourth try but the fry are only wigglers at t his point and not free swimming yet. I was told they will only eat newly hatched brine shrimp but was wondering if I had any other alternatives. Was wondering what you feed your fry? Thanks!


Laura


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## george

Laura, have you tried green water?


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## PanzerFodder

laurahmm said:


> what do you feed the fry btw? My angels have finally successfully raised a batch after their fourth try but the fry are only wigglers at t his point and not free swimming yet. I was told they will only eat newly hatched brine shrimp but was wondering if I had any other alternatives. Was wondering what you feed your fry? Thanks!
> 
> Laura


Hi Laura.

I have never bred any Angelfish yet, so I don't know if this will be relevant to you? but I am feeding the ram fry with "Hikari First Bites" and when they are a bit bigger I have some omega one frozen baby BBS that I will try on them as well.

The First Bites feed packet says to start to feed it just before the babies egg sack is all gone, so that is what I am doing although the ram fry are really tiny (about half the size of Guppies fry) they seem to be eating it as far as I can see  .

I don't know anything about the green water that george mentioned? so if anybody can explain how this is done I will be grateful?.

I did read that boiled egg yoke mashed with water can also be fed to fry, but don't kown if it is good for rams or angelfish?.

I have now moved about 25 fry to their own 10G tank as they were getting picked off rather rapidly in the community tank  , and looking into that tank today it seems all the fry are gone, the female ram dose not seem worried by this and has now started to whop the food down, so I guess all is ok with her.

Cheer's...PanzerFodder...


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## PanzerFodder

Just updating this post.

The fry are almost 3 weeks old now, and at last count I have 25 of them left, they seem to be doing ok on the diet of First Bites and the frozen BBS, and I can even see a black dot on the dorsal fins of some of the larger one's 
I can't get a photo of them as they are much to small for my camera to focus on ATM  .

However I did manage to get a better photo of their parents, they have colored up again and look like they getting ready to spawn again, as the male is cleaning the piece of slate, as I write this 










Cheer's...PanzerFodder...


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## dl88dl

Beautiful pair of rams...keep up the good work


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## PanzerFodder

dl88dl said:


> Beautiful pair of rams...keep up the good work


Thanks Dave, but remember I got some good advice when I came into the hobby 

Cheer's...PanzerFodder...


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## PanzerFodder

Just, another update.

Managed to get an half in focus shot of the Bolivian babies at just over one month old.

I was surprised to see that they have started to get the black stripe through the eye already, and some of the bigger ones have a body shape just like their parents, also acting like them as well, by chasing one another around the tank all day long  .










Cheer's...PanzerFodder...


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## Jackson

Very nice 

They are very cute. Congrats Bro


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## dl88dl

Nice update...cute little guys


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