Re: Rams: Bullying, Sexing & General Advice
#16
The Golden Ram is reported to be a colour morph of the Blue Ram. Some have more similar markings to Blue Rams ie. have the black stripe through the eye etc. These are similar to Linz's Ramses - no black markings with orange nose to pinkish/white though the body and tail rather than yellow/gold through to blue.
We went down to pick a pair of Gold Rams that I'd seen a few weeks before that were quite pale. I'd been wanting blues for so long but never found any locally apart from ballon rams. I'd called ahead to check thier stock and explaned I was ideally after a mating pair. They said thier stock was too juvinile to have started piaring off as yet but they could net me at least a male and female (well arranged marriage have been known to work you know!) We arrived to find they but they'd got this new batch in with the super bright orange faces. They still had the paler rams but we really liked these and decided to splurge. I was having a hard time trying to figure the sexing though and in the end I just had to trust the young girl who was advising us. She was very keen and had kept rams before etc. I had a good look at them once netted at the till I questioned thier sex again as there seemed to be no difference (as you can see) in thier shapes only a slight difference in colour. The assistant pointed out to me that the male had much longer fins, particularly the anal fin. I couln't see it then and still can't - both look the same to me... This was however bank holiday monday and I think the mature staff are only around in weekdays.
I can't get a hold of the shop owner yet but hopefully he'll be able to shead some light on their history (prob bread in thiland or something, eek) and what we should do from here. As Linz points out I don't want to have to move them again unless I have to.
Tank update though - I removed the glass divide after adding a lot more plants and building a kind of maze of plants and little slate walls (almost like little trenches) on the bottom. This seems to work quite well. The agressor still bothers the Sub but gives up chase much more readily when faced with a barrier. This went on for some time untill I dared feed them and they were back to all out warfare. However the Sub seems to be growing a few more balls and standing it's ground where it can. After an hour or so and all the lights off they've settled and seem to be getting more of measure of each other so I'm just going to leave them for the night and see. The agressor is still always the one to follow, and bug the sub but now there are more distractions and the sub is gettin miffed and hitting back perhaps they will settle a little. If it carries on or one goes totally recluse with stress I'll split the tank again but for now just see how it goes. Might be able to get back to the store on sat to swap but it will be weekend staff again and means moving the fish. hmm
GW - I have some better shots this was the best one to see them both. The paler, aggressive one is almost as orange as the other now.
TL - Yeah, who knows - hard to say either way. Going to read your growing pains now :) Ramese tank looking good dood.