40 Gallon GBR Setup and breeding advice

[Mostlydave]

I have a standard 40 gallon tank, I used black diamond sand, have it pretty heavily planted, I have a large piece of driftwood in the center along with 7 cichlid stones spread out. The tank currently has 2 adult females that I am moving out to my community tank, this week I have 7 Juvenile GBR coming and I'm planning on using this tank for them to try to get some pairs and successful spawns.

Is this tank big enough with enough hiding places for that many rams? I have seen mixed opinions on this on several forums and would like to see what everybody thinks.

I do want to breed my rams and I do have a 20 gallon long and a 5 gallon tank on standby as a fry/grow out tanks.

Can I leave all of the paired up rams (hopefully I'll end up with 3 pairs) in the 40 gallon and have them breed in the tank with other pairs present? I'm hoping to get lucky enough to get some parent raised fry and then move them to the 20 long to grow out. Has anyone had any luck breeding with this type of setup?

 

[Mike Wise]

In the wild, M. ramirezi breed in colony-like groups of pairs. Each pair defends a breeding territory several feet in diameter that borders another pair's territory. Once the fry are old enough to be on their own, they form small schools of similar size fish. You might be able to simulate this in your aquarium, but I doubt that you will be super-productive. I guess it is worth a try.

 

[Mostlydave]

Thanks for the info Mike!

I guess what I'm asking is what is the best way to breed them, or how do the forum members here do it? should I leave 2 or 3 pairs in the 40 gallon or should I put 1 pair in the 20 breeder by themselves?

I guess since I have 7 coming I may be able to try both, leave 1 or 2 pairs in the display tank and put a pair in the 20 long and see what happens!

I'm not trying to start a fish farm here, but I would like to be productive enough to sell some fish online and maybe have my fish hobby be self sustaining

 

[Mostlydave]

I've found a lot of info searching the forum, but I'd still appreciate if anyone has any tips or would like to share the details of there breeding setup.

 

[Mike Wise]

Sadly, the 'best way' to get the most fry is to remove the spawn from the parents and artificially hatch & raise the fry in separate tanks. I know that this isn't exactly what you want to hear but it is the truth. If I had your tank, I would just put all of the fish together and wait to see what happens. You could get lucky!

 

[Mostlydave]

Well, I ended up with 1 male and 6 females. Any chance that the male will pair up with so many females present? I'm hoping to get 3 or so more males, should I move 3 of the females into a different tank, or should I leave them all together until they pair up?

 

[electric eel]

i'd leave them all together until he pairs up with one of the females and then take the other 5 out.you would probably be more productive if you set your pair up in the 20 long and use the 5 gallon to get the fry started and then move the fry when they got a little bigger into your 40 to grow out.you could keep quite a few in the 40 as long as you changed some water every day even as they got fairly good sized as long as you kept them well fed to cut down on aggression.if you have very good luck one pair will give you more then you will know what to do with.the pair i've got now i never had any luck getting them to parent raise but a guy i sold 2 young pairs to 3 weeks ago or so told me on the phone last night that he has about 75 fry swimming for one week with the one pair.if you are going to set up 3 more pairs you will need to buy about 10 -55 gallon tanks to keep the fry in and with any luck they would soon be full.when i was going good before i ended up with around 700 with about 300 or so of them being young adults.i had to quit taking fry from the one pair i had set up.it took me a while to get rid of them.thats kind of what got me started with apistos.i traded ryan from two fish guys a bunch of them for some nice apistos.

 

[Mostlydave]

Ok, thanks for the heads up! I'll start with one pair and see hoe it goes. One question, I'm assuming it will be easy to tell when a pair is formed and it should be pretty obvious, is that the case?

 

[Mostlydave]

I've got a pair! When I was checking out my Rams today I noticed they laid a lot of eggs in a bowl shaped depression in a piece of driftwood in the tank! I also identified the pair, they're chasing everyone else away from the eggs! Now I've got to decide if I should remove the eggs or remove them while I still have some, I'm thinking I won't be able to because the piece of driftwood they're on is pretty large. What does everyone think, let them be or try to remove some eggs and raise them seperate?

 

[Mike Wise]

Since this is the pair's first spawn, I would let them experience trying to protect the fry. Practice often helps in the long run. Rams are not really fry predators, so the pair might have a chance. If you lose the spawn, the pair will spawn again. Personally, in a large tank, I would keep a couple of extra Rams as 'target' fish. This keeps the parents busy protecting the eggs/fry and not thinking of eating the fry.

 

[Mostlydave]

Since this is the pair's first spawn, I would let them experience trying to protect the fry. Practice often helps in the long run. Rams are not really fry predators, so the pair might have a chance. If you lose the spawn, the pair will spawn again. Personally, in a large tank, I would keep a couple of extra Rams as 'target' fish. This keeps the parents busy protecting the eggs/fry and not thinking of eating the fry.

Well, I've got the pair plus 5 females at the moment I don't have any spare tanks. I wasn't expecting them to spawn yet. I'm just going to let them go for now and see what happens. If I get some fry that's fine and if not I'll be more prepared next time

 

[Mostlydave]

Well all the eggs are gone! They were there this morning with the male gaurding them when I checked, this afternoon there's no sign of them.

 

[slimbolen99]

Don't give up! They may have moved them. After the eggs hatch, one of the mates will go dig a pit while the other guards the eggs. When they are close to hatching, they'll take turns moving the fry to the pit. You won't be able to see the babies until they are wiggling or "hopping", the first stages of free swimming.

 

[Mostlydave]

Thanks for all the encouragement everyone! I have a new batch of eggs tonight and I'm going to let them go again and see what happens. The last batch lated about 48 hours I'm hoping to see some fry this time around!

The tank currently has an aqueon 55/75 running on it, would a poret foam per filter be sufficient to protect the fry, I don't want them getting sucked into he filter as soon as they become fre swimming

Another question is will snails eat the eggs? I got some snails with the plants in this tank and I wasn't sure if they would eat eggs or not.