How To Breed Ram Cichlid

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How To Breed Ram Cichlid . The ram cichlid is one of my favorite dwarf cichlids since I started breeding fishes. Lighting brings good effect on this fish. The neon colors of blue red and pinch of yellow can I conclude that this is the beautiful dwarf cichlid I had.

I was able to breed this nice fishes. In fact it takes little effort but proper observation needed. Idid a lot of trial and error, and finally I got it right. The secret is nutrients, temperature and water quality. Essentials for breeding this good looking fish. Ok here are some pretty basic steps to start with breeding this fishes.

First Step, How to condition your pair. Ok first thing is, condition your female. You can notice your female just by comparing the size. Here are the pics just to have a glimpse.

Ok the pic seems not clear about the size, but you will notice that when your ram gets old, the female is smaller compared to the male.

Once you determine the gender, try to separate the female from the male. Here is the secret, feed your female with varied diets, protein mostly, shrimps, brine shrimps, and other heavy with protein, this willl strengthen the eggs and also the female. The sign to which the female is ready to give birth is her stomach becomes bright pink. There, once you see that you can bring the female back to the male. Here is the hint, I dont beleive in what they said about water acidity so that rams will breed, I dont beleive in the chemicals they add to lower the ph, the secret is, put plenty of plants in the aquarium, 2/3 of plants in the aquarium. This will lower ph levels as plants consume negative energy in the aquarium and produces soft water good for the ram, trust me, this is better that synthesized chemicals that you pour on the aquarium.

Ok, once you bring back the female with her stomach( that looks like its gonna burst) put some chipped clay into the aquarium floor approx 5 or 6 chiped clay with a diameter of 2 inches. ( see the pic below)


this are good places where the ram will spawn. Put the chipped clay pots in places where it is likely hidden, as well as you can track them. After that, leave the pair for 2 days w/o food, this will encourage the female to spawn, just keep track of the pair after you put the female back with the male. keep track of the clay pots or where the 2 are with together because if they are likely in a place without living it, there are great chances that eggs are in that area.

So, when you see the eggs in for example, on the chipped clay pots or in a leaf, you should try to take off that part, the clay pot with the eggs or the leaf with the eggs. This is the technique so that you can have higher mortality rate as compared to letting the parents take care of the fry. An example off ram eggs below, so that you wont get confused.


Now get the clay pot or the leaf where the eggs are then transfer it in a smaller aquarium about 8 inches by 5 inches by 5 inches big. with adequate sponge filter (be sure the aerator is not strong enough so that the fry wont be sucked in) there are available sponge filters in the store good for fry, just ask the dealer. Anyway( be sure that the aquarium where you transferred the fry must be aeratored and filtered for at least a week) after you had transferred it put it beside an aerator with an aerator stone so that the bubbles passes through the eggs so that no impurities would settle in the egg. Then put Methylene blue so that it will disinfect any bacteria and fungus present in the aquarium. The set-up looks like the one below:



After 3 days, the eggs will hatch, after another 3 days the fry swims, all in all approximately for a week the fry swims, the fry clumps to a particular corner where you can see hundreds of them clinging and swimming, but take note, when you see that the fry still has its yolk sac, it wont feed from the mouth( see the pic below).
After the yolk sac has been absorbed it will start to feed. Here comes the hard part, a small food that a point size fry could feed. What else can you think?, a traditional hard boiled egg, get small amounts from the yellow part then dissolve it in a water, this is a suitable food right for the small fry, get a medicine drops and use it to feed the fry. Other commercial food products for small fry are available in the market.

After 1 week of feeding, and when you see the improved size you can now start to introduce brine shrimp( brine shrimps are available in the pet shops and just ask the dealer on how to cultivate it) or you ll try this link..How to Hatch A Brine Shrimp. When the fry starts to feed on Brine shrimp this is 90 percent sure that the fry will live. Brine Shrimp is also known as Artemia...In case youre very cautious on water ph and temperature...ram fry and also the parents best peforms in 78 degrees F to 84 degrees F. Ph levels from 6.5 and 7 are great. Please comment on this post and keep track cause Im going to add other tips on breeding and cultivating as well as aquarium maintenace.

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