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Wold you separate these GBRs ?

Tally

Tally

New Member
Joined
20 Apr 2017
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15
Location
Gateshead
Hi all, I'll try to keep this short.
Before the lockdown in February I bought 5 GBR from my LFS. I was going to try to pair two of them and take 3 back but with lockdown this never happened. They were kept in a heavily planted EA600 which holds about 100 litres, the filter is an Oase 300. I manged to give one GBR to a friend but 4 rams in 100 litre wasn't ideal so I ended up getting a Roma 200 with an Oase 350 filter.
I transferred some filter media over to the Roma , used new sand as substrate ,planted a few new amazon swords into the sand and transferred some plants in 2 inch clay pots from the 600.
A week on and a female ram has uprooted one of the plants from the clay pot and layed eggs. The male and female rams are taking turns to attack the other two rams. The pot with the eggs is at one side of the tank and they are still travelling the full length of the tank to attack the other two rams hiding in the swords.

How long should I expect this behaviour to continue ?
Do you think I should put the two unpaired rams back into the 600 which has been stripped back to a bare bottom with a couple of pots of tissue culture plants and a few cherry shrimp. I would imagine most of the filter bacteria would have died back? I could plant it up again with new plants but it will still be an immature set up for rams.

Any advice would be much appreciated.
 
As long as they have eggs this will continue. Breaking their line of sight as much as possible will help. Can you not some filter media from the Roma in the 600?

cheers
 
This could even continue after the eggs/fry are gone. A pair can be aggressive towards others indefinitely and may eventually kill them through stress.
 
Thanks for the response.

The line of sight is broken to the height of about 6 inches until the plants grow in higher.
Adding more GBRs from the same LFS isn't an option so I have decided to remove two rams into the 600.
I have a delivery of substrate and plants tomorrow so I will plant it up and transfer two of them over and do large daily water changes. I can add filter media from another tank . I know it's not ideal but they appear not to be too delicate as they have spawned within a couple of days of being rehomed in the Roma.

Without my intervention, would you expect the spawn to reach maturity? The tank mates are 10 ember tetra and numerous cherry shrimp.

Thanks
 
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More than likely no. It usually takes multiple times before they realize their own spawn are not caviar, then they may get to the wiggler stage. From there it depends on how well they can hide from everyone else.
 
Mr.Shenanagins said:
More than likely no. It usually takes multiple times before they realize their own spawn are not caviar, then they may get to the wiggler stage. From there it depends on how well they can hide from everyone else.
Click to expand...
Well you got the caviar part spot on, I've just checked and they are defending an empty pot.
At least I've identified a pair because I was struggling to work out if I had females and males. Even now it is only when they are side by side that it is evident to me, apart from their size difference they look very similar
 
Females usually have red/pink in their belly and shorter dorsal fin. Not as prominent and pointy as a male. They are also usually a little rounder in shape and not as slender as males.
 
I'm separating the rams today but if I left things as they are, would the pair be a permanent bond ?

Thanks
 
Tally said:
Without my intervention, would you expect the spawn to reach maturity?
Click to expand...
Hi @Tally

As others have suggested, no. If you want the spawn to reach maturity, you will need to move the eggs to a separate tank. There are two ways that you could consider. Firstly, lay a piece of flat slate on the substrate in one rear corner of the tank. GBRs sometimes prefer flat surfaces on which to spawn but it's not guaranteed to work. Then move the slate with eggs to another tank. The other option is to syphon off the eggs and transfer the eggs to another cycled tank (with sponge filter). Or, you could consider moving all the other livestock to a separate tank. My experience is that the adult GBRs will always eat the eggs - particularly if there are other livestock in the tank. When you've transferred the eggs, ask us about feeding the fry. I once raised a lot of GBR fry this way. Quite a bit of work but well worth the effort.

JPC
 
Hi jaypeecee

I only moved the 4 into a bigger tank as I thought it may have been a peaceful set up for them.
I was well surprised at them spawning after a couple of days following their move. It now looks like this pair have claimed the whole tank. The future set up will be these two and about 30 ember tetra, I can see what happens with this setup but I may well be tempted with raising fry in another tank at a later date when time permits and if they continue to have future spawns.

Thanks for the info
 
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