Gold Ram aggression

[Poeci]

I have a pair of gold rams in a 20h planted tank and I've noticed that the male has been chasing the female around a lot lately mores so then when I first got them about three weeks ago, is this going to cause a serious problem for my lone female, and considering the size of my tank, should I think about adding another female?

 

[Apistt_ed]

Male Rams are quite aggressive towards females if they haven't paired off and if the female is not ready to spawn. The trick is.. if you have the room for it, to get a number of fish, I usually buy 7 or so and as soon as I see a definite pair bond forming then I'll take out the rest of the fish and just leave the paired ones in the tank. As long as the female isn't ready to spawn, the male will keep on chasing her around and even be nasty towards her. To defuse some of the aggression towards the female, you could always just add more things into the tank so she can hide until she is ready to spawn. I find floating plants in bunches to do pretty well such as Nymphoides aquatica- (banana plant) along with clumps of anubias are some plants that do well with bog wood pieces. The male should start to come around and tolerate the female once they've spawned once. Once the pair has spawned, you shouldn't have any more aggression towards each other. Adding another female would only lead to one of the females not being bonded and the target of the pair's aggression later on. best of luck to you. john

 

[Cichlid Junkie]

Do you have any dither/target fish? If not you might want to consider some. They could help.

 

[fishgeek]

or simply put a divider in for a while

andrew