gswalker Posted March 14, 2004 Share Posted March 14, 2004 I just acquired 5 blue rams on the weekend after not keeping them for about a year, the reason I gave them up is after a few weeks or even months of getting them they would eventually got to the surface breath very fast and hard and then die, Now they seem to be doing it again, they are in a 2 1/2 foot tank and have rocks filter and air stone the ph is about 7 so what the hell am I doing wrong? oh and the temp is 26 deg Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fiona Posted March 15, 2004 Share Posted March 15, 2004 The symptoms you are talking of are very typical of a fish unable to get the required amount of oxygen. There are many reasons for this and they may have nothing to do with the amount of oxygen in the water. It may have more to do with the condition of the gills, most commonly some kind of damage to the gills that prevents efficient oxygen transfer. pH shock can do it. The reason why is that the sensitive gills get burned by the change in pH. You need to keep your water at a constant pH and make sure changes are gradual. Soft water (as rams prefer) is subject to pH swings. Ammonia also burns gills. Parasites can also do it. I had fish with those symptoms and I could not work out what was going on until I saw some white spots some days after the gasping symptoms first appeared, and found out that white spot can live on the gills and not show on the body. I treated the fish for white spot and the symptoms disappeared. That was after I lost a few though. There are other parasites that can do this. Go through a list of possible causes for gill damage and see what you can come up with. Regarding your current conditions, I have not kept rams, but don't they prefer a soft water, acidic environment? I would have thought neutral pH might be too high for them to be optimum. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Daniel Posted March 15, 2004 Share Posted March 15, 2004 GS Walker, I had exactly the same problem every time I bought rams from an lfs. They would be fine for a few days, then they would go to the top and breath heavy for a few days, then die ! I had given them up, until I stumbled upon a source of quality Aust bred rams from QLD. These guys have proven to be extremely hardy. No matter which tank they are kept in they are happy, eat like pigs, can handle straight tap water at 8.0ph, and breed like rabbits. In fact, they were actually bred and reared in water with a ph of 8.0. Sydney tap water has low kh, which makes it easier for most soft water fish to handle, even though the ph is high. My thoughts are that most Asian sourced Rams are unable to handle the slightest bit of nitrite or ammonia which takes about 48 hours to convert to nitrite in most tanks. You need a really good bio filter to quickly convert ammonia to nitrite then to nitrate. And also, Rams do not like a heavily populated tank. What, I am pretty sure of is that a lack of oxygen is not the cause. Also, the temp is fine. The tank size is ok, depending on the population. If it is heavily populated tank then that is a potential problem. In fact, a big part of my problems was over population. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chester Posted March 15, 2004 Share Posted March 15, 2004 I also tried rams a while back but didn't have success either. I spoke to a LFS owner (not the one where I got them from) and he said that the rams that are imported don't last long. GSWalker, I am guessing that you got yours from the American show? If you did then you shouldn't have the problems that Daniel and I are talking about because they are most likely from a local breeder. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gswalker Posted March 15, 2004 Author Share Posted March 15, 2004 I only have 5 in the whole tank Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Daniel Posted March 15, 2004 Share Posted March 15, 2004 Thats a good start, now where did you get them and what filter/set up do you have ? Was the filter well cycled ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gswalker Posted March 17, 2004 Author Share Posted March 17, 2004 I have got a corner filter plus an ait stone and yes it was well filtered before i put them in 1 has already died and another one is doing the up top of the tank thing , im over this If these die I will never keep rams again and make sure any of my friends dont as im sick of these dying when i am doing nothing wrong, the PH is about 6.8 temp is 27 and everything else has lived fine in this tank but these things Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Daniel Posted March 18, 2004 Share Posted March 18, 2004 We need to know where you got them to determine if they are Asian sourced or local bred. My guess is that you got them from an lfs and they are most likely Asian sourced which means the quality is poor and often they will die pretty quickly. Your temp is fine, your ph is fine, your tank size is not overstocked, you do not have a lack of oxygen problem but your filtration may be a problem. Obviously, they are not happy with the water quality, so try 50% water changes (even though this didnt help me when I had problems with Asian sourced Rams). Where did you get them ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nornicle Posted March 18, 2004 Share Posted March 18, 2004 he got them from the American Cichlid show... If you see Auburn Aquarium's they keep their rams in the planted system, and i think they have a reasonable survival rate.. *promotes planted systems!* Also try a u.v steriliser..... rams are just one of those fish you look at funny and they die!!! although when I was in malaysia I talked to a couple of aquarium stores and they all said the fish in their planted (high tech co2 injected) tanks had ~ 100% survival FROM the wholesaler... maybe something to be said about the water purifying effects of plants! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
a_devis Posted March 18, 2004 Share Posted March 18, 2004 I had the same kind of problems with blue rams. I tried everything. They seemed to be happy for a while (2 weeks- 2 month) and started breeding, but than developed the symptoms you described and died. Male always(!?) died first. I don’t think water quality or filtration is the reason. Now I have only one imported female left. I have her already for 6 month. She is beautiful and grew a lot. The reason she survived, I think, was formaldehyde treatment. As soon as I noticed the symptoms I started treatment for Ichthyophthirius and gave full cycle of treatment with salt and formaldehyde. It was too late for male, but saved her life. I looked at gills of the dead and half of the gills where white. Now I am looking for a male (anyone?). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Citypainter Posted March 27, 2004 Share Posted March 27, 2004 I know how you feel. I gave up on them years ago. Now I got 7 Bolivian butterflies. They seem much hardier. No fatalities at all. They chase eachother, fight amoung them selves and have great colour. The tank had white spot at one stage and I treated it and they all lived. It seemed that they were nort effected by the illness or the treatment. A much better alternative. Good luck with the Rams but I think we all foresee the inevitable. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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