Blue ram, where's the spot?

[soko]

Right now I have two 1" blue rams 1m/1f in my 50 gal, nothing else is in there but a bunch of plants and a peice of wood, anyways, a few hours after I dropped them in, one of them lost the stripe over its eye and it's black spot, sometimes when I stick my hand in there to feed them I can see it slowly come back but then dissapears a short time later. The other one is showing it's full color and as far as I've seen never faded. My pH is a little high 7.2, temp is about 75f, they both are free roamning the tank like they dont have a care in the world, but I don't understand why the stripe is gone! It's been like this for almost 24 hours. Any ideas?

 

[aspen]

2 males?? the one showing the most colour is the dominant one. give this some time.

you wouldn't be the first to buy 2 males. i did a couple of months ago, and just noticed it. the subdominant never raised it's fin spike and maybe i didn't look close enough. but they sure looked like male and female when i got them.

rick

 

[soko]

Thanks, yes the one that I thought was the female was bigger than the male and had a pinkish stomach area so I thought it was a female too. Maybe they are both males. Bah...

 

[Randall]

Microgeophagus ramirezi

Dear Soko,

24 hours is not a lot of time when acclimating fish to their new home. As Rick suggests, please give it time. Certainly, you could have two males, but in a 50-gallon tank it is possible to have two dominant males simultaneously. You might try raising the temperature (slowly) to 78 degrees F (75 is awfully chilly for rams) and softening the water a bit (pH 7.2 is a little high).

Good luck!

Randall Kohn