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One of my German Blue Rams is in distress–I bought her about 2 weeks ago with another female and a male, unfortunately I lost one of the females. The remaining two were doing fine, but now my female seems stressed, just listless, not swimming much, breathing hard. She just rests mostly, seems exhausted, trying to conserve her energy. I haven’t had the best of luck with these fish but I love them so much, and I’ve worked hard getting my tank set up properly for them. I’m off to go test the water chemistry again, the PH was 7.2 before I put them in and the hardness was low, but my other fish have been doing so well I haven’t done a full test for a bit.
Honestly, I didn’t think she’d make it through the night, but she’s still here and even coloring up a little. I wish I knew more to do for her…any suggestions?
I’m sorry, but I don’t know much about fish 🙁 Is there anything on a fish-centric site that might help?
I looked up a few sites, but I know there’s a couple of other fish people on here 🙂 She’s still puttering around though, at least.
I know Jennifer is a bit of a fish person, but she’s been offline for a convention and then her wedding ceremony. Hopefully she’ll be back soon and can give some advice.
What are your other water parameters? Ammonia levels? Nitrite/Nitrate?
How are the other fish?Does she have any other symptoms other than appearing listless/exhausted? Any unusual coloring, markings, dots, things stuck to her scales, etc etc?
If everything else is okay and she’s not demonstrating signs of any particular illness, you might sadly be out of luck. Any fish that is bred extensively in captivity can be prone to genetic problems as inbreeding occurs, depending on the source that the ram comes from. Sadly, unlike our larger pet friends, most small aquarium fish realistically cannot see a vet to get a diagnosis or treatment. I have only heard of larger fish such as koi receiving such treatment, and even then it is iffy at best. 🙁
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My art: featherdust.comI had aquariums at one time and the levels of pH and ammonia etc can change from one moment to the next. Stresses the fish big time. Yeah, there are medications you can get in pet stores and it’s real hard to diagnose a fish. Best of luck–this is a tough one!
Water chemistry doesn’t seem to be an issue. Ammonia, Phosphates, Nitrates/Nitrites are all 0. PH is 7.4, general hardness is really low, 3 or less.
None of the other fish are distressed, they’re all healthy and eating like pigs, beautiful colors, even the male Ram. She’s much grayer than he is, not showing much color, still listless after 3 days. :shrug: Haven’t been able to get around this one. I did a water change last night, a small one, with some RO/DI water. Didn’t seem to help or hurt.
Blue rams, like some other types of fish, for some reason just don’t do well when bought at a pet store. They’re often imported, and sometimes have parasites. Or they were just raised in such different conditions that they don’t adjust to your water parameters. I suggest making sure the temperature is at 78-80 degrees. If your water is already that warm, and she’s still doing badly, treat with an anti-parasitic medication. Colorwise, she *should* be a bit greyer (not much) than the male, but with a pink belly that he won’t have. If you do end up losing her, I recommend buying blue rams from these people:
http://www.aquabid.com/cgi-bin/auction/auction.cgi?fwapisto&1247949035
I got some rams from them and they were AWESOME. It also helps that hobbyist breeders take a bit of pride in their hobby, and are not mass producing them in giant tanks. These guys breed beautiful, healthy rams.
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