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Trouble with Blue Rams

Dannyboyee82

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Hi there, thanks for taking a look at my post.

I bought two Blue Rams from the LFS around a month ago and they were getting on fine despite a few little arguments over bloodworm etc. After doing a little digging on Google I discovered how to sex them and it seemed that I had two females. So, I went back to the LFS to ask them to source me a male. Last weekend I brought the little guy home and introduced him to the ladies. What happened next was a huge fight between my two females - the dominant one flared up in colour and so did the usually submissive one, chasing and tail bashing ensued - around half an hour later things seemed to settle. For the first hour or so the two females paid little or no attention to the new male and so I thought things were going to go smoothly after the initial fight over who has the right over the male. Unfortunately, a few days on the dominant female (and to a lesser extent the submissive) is bullying the new male to a point that he is mainly at the surface, and seems to be hiding his typically Blue Ram features to avoid drawing attention.. dorsal, pectoral fins are flush with his body most of the time, he seems to be mimicking other fish.

The male is much smaller in size, younger I assume and his colours are not showing through as much as the females. I'm considering taking him back to the LFS and having them look after him until he is bigger and then attempt to reintroduce him to my tank.. my logic is that once he is fully grown he will not only be able to defend himself, but also be attractive to the females with his colours etc. Am I doing the right thing? Are there other options?

I am pretty certain that my two females are females, they have the black stripe on pectoral fins, blue shimmer on black spot, short rays on dorsal fin - the only thing they lack is the pink belly - but I hear this is only present when they are in season so to speak? The smaller male isn't developed enough to see if the black spot has any blue shimmer, but he has no black stripe on pectoral fin and the first three rays of his dorsal fin are pretty long, he also has a typical Cichlid bump on his head, unlike my suspected females who are more rounded.

Any advice would be appreciated. But I'm thinking that he is too young and small to be assertive enough with my females and is getting bullied.. so a trip to the LFS and a holiday there for a month while he gets in shape is my only plan.
 

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