rm
Passport
- Family
- Sth American Cichlids - dwarf
- Grows to
- 4 cm (1.6")
- Lives
- 2–4 years
- Temperament
- Peaceful
- Care
- Intermediate
- Swims
- On the bottom
- Keep
- One is fine
- Water
- 27–30 °C (81–86 °F)
VenezuelaColombia
Care requirements
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On record for German Blue Ram: adult size, lifespan, minimum tank, temperature, ph, hardness, minimum group, diet, care level, swim level, tank length.
A figure that is not on record is left out rather than guessed. One marked Suggested comes from keeping knowledge rather than a page.
- Minimum tank 76 L / 20.0 US gal
- pH 4–7
- Hardness 1–10 dGH
- Diet omnivore
- Tank length 60 cm minimum
Keeping notes
Wants clean, warm, stable water and loses out at feeding time to anything pushy. Not aggressive, just delicate, and it likes its water warmer than most community fish do.
Care notes written from general aquarium knowledge, not from the cited sources.
About
A dwarf cichlid with the colour of a marine fish and the constitution of something far more delicate. Rams sit in every shop as a community centrepiece, and they're the fish most likely to die in a tank where everything else is doing fine.
The reason is rarely aggression, and that's the usual misdiagnosis. Rams want pristine water and warmer conditions than most community fish, they're poor competitors at feeding time, and modern farmed stock is often weak when it arrives. A ram that fades and stops eating has generally been outcompeted or kept too cool, not bullied.
They pair up readily and turn territorial when they do, but the territory is small and the aggression is mostly display.
Tank setup
Keep them warm — this is the constraint that decides their tank mates. Rams want the top of the tropical range all year, warmer than corydoras, danios or white clouds are happy with. Stock a ram with cooler-water fish and one of them is permanently in the wrong tank.
Give them somewhere mature and stable. They're a poor choice for a new tank and a lovely one for a settled, well-planted aquarium that's been running for months.
Add soft cover and break up the sightlines with planting, wood and leaf litter. They use the lower third and want places to retreat to without leaving the open floor altogether.
Put in a flat stone or some smooth surface if there's any chance of a pair forming. They'll spawn on one.
Feeding
Feed them small amounts, often, and put it where they can reach it. Quality pellets and frozen bloodworm, brine shrimp and daphnia; they take food from the substrate and mid-water, slowly and deliberately.
Tetras and barbs will beat them to it. In a busy community the ram eats last, and a thin ram is nearly always a competition problem rather than a fish refusing to eat.
Avoid: feeding at one spot in a fast community, and dried food alone — both colour and condition drop off.
Filtration and flow
Give them gentle flow and excellent water quality. Their nitrate tolerance is genuinely low for a community fish, and a ram will register a tank that everything else finds perfectly acceptable.
They come from slow, warm, soft water and do best in something similar. Frequent small water changes, matched for temperature.
With plants
Excellent with plants and much better off among them. They won't dig destructively the way larger cichlids do — a pair may fan a small patch of substrate clean before spawning, and that's the extent of it.
Dense planting is the best single thing you can do for a nervous ram.
Health
This species has a habit of arriving unwell. A lot of farmed stock is weak, and a ram that dies in its first fortnight in a well-run tank was often lost before you bought it. Buy from somewhere that keeps them warm, and quarantine if you can.
Beyond that the risks are the ordinary ones amplified: nitrate, temperature swings, and being outcompeted. A ram that darkens, clamps its fins and hangs near the bottom is usually telling you about the water.
They react badly to some treatments, so check what a product says about them before adding it and then use it as instructed.
Breeding
Common, and one of the more rewarding first cichlid spawns you can have. A pair cleans a flat stone or a patch of substrate and lays a few hundred eggs, and both parents guard and fan them.
They're attentive parents when they get it right, and first-time pairs frequently eat the clutch. That's normal rather than a sign of a bad pair.
The fry are tiny and want infusoria before baby brine shrimp. The parents herd them around the tank, which is the part worth watching for.
Tank mates
Avoid10
- Convict Cichlid Convict Cichlid grows to 15 cm against German Blue Ram at 4 cm, big enough to eat it.
- Golden Wonder Killifish Golden Wonder Killifish grows to 10 cm against German Blue Ram at 4 cm, big enough to eat it.
- Jewel Cichlid Jewel Cichlid grows to 15 cm against German Blue Ram at 4 cm, big enough to eat it.
- Pictus Catfish Pictus Catfish grows to 12 cm against German Blue Ram at 4 cm, big enough to eat it.
- Common Goldfish Common Goldfish is not safe with German Blue Ram: common goldfish and sth american cichlids - dwarf are a bad pairing.
Only with care26
- Chinese Algae Eater Chinese Algae Eater is aggressive and German Blue Ram is peaceful.
- Amano Shrimp German Blue Ram is a risk to Amano Shrimp: shrimp and yabbies and sth american cichlids - dwarf are a pairing to watch.
- Bamboo Shrimp German Blue Ram is a risk to Bamboo Shrimp: shrimp and yabbies and sth american cichlids - dwarf are a pairing to watch.
- Blue Bolt Shrimp German Blue Ram is a risk to Blue Bolt Shrimp: shrimp and yabbies and sth american cichlids - dwarf are a pairing to watch.
- Blue Dream Shrimp German Blue Ram is a risk to Blue Dream Shrimp: shrimp and yabbies and sth american cichlids - dwarf are a pairing to watch.
No conflict is recorded with the other 68 species in the database, so nothing to flag. 4 species are not covered at all, so they could not be judged either way.