Breeding Project: German Blue Ram

Oops! Forgot to make a log entry the other day that is very crucial to the breeding project. On the same day that I made the log entry of the peculiar behaviour, on December 4th, a medium-sized batch of eggs was noted on the heavily cleaned area of the two. It was very exciting and quite surprising to see the fish being able to spawn without a lengthy conditioning period.

It was quite exciting to see the pair react the way they did, however, interesting behaviours were noted. Although it was my first time witnessing the egg-laying and fertilization of this species, there were still some things they did that caught my attention. First off, the female didn't seem to want the male to fertilize her eggs. A lot of harsh pecking was noted when the male went in every-so-often to release his sperm to fertilize the eggs with when she went in and out of the spawning site.

Already I had questions about the fertilization of the entire spawn of eggs. After a lengthy session of egg-laying and furious pecking at the male, the female began to wander the tank more and more often with the male following closely behind her (speculating that he would guard her from any other males who would want to mate with her). Once she had finished her job of egg-laying, she would periodically dart about, sometimes causing a wave of water to dislodge and brush out a couple of the eggs. She did not do a very good job at retrieval and re-placing the eggs within the spawning site.

The father, however, showed some promise as I observed him a couple times grabbing the eggs that had dislodged and placing them back within the nesting site. He began fanning overtop the eggs to allow for good aeration of the eggs and became quite protective of the spawn, slowly beginning to peck at and chase off the female from the area. I decided he might have wanted her to patrol the area more than to take parental duties of the young.

The next day, I observed a lot of pecking from the male, forcing the female to hide behind the bubble filter to avoid being seen and pecked at. I decided for her health and safety to remove her, so I placed her in a temporary 1.2 gallon desktop tank. He seemed to have concentrated more upon guarding the eggs now and showed strong aggressive guarding behaviours as demonstrated by his attacks to objects moving in close to the nesting site - such as my camera or finger on the other side of the tank.

A worrisome thought occurred to me that made me rechange my initial impression that he may become a great father. Although it is common for a few if not a couple eggs to turn white because they are infertile, German Blue Rams will often remove these from the nest as to prevent fungus which may spread to the healthy eggs. When he did not perform this function, I began to worry a bit but shrugged it off in the hopes that he would remove them at a later time.

I had been gone all day the next day, and when I returned in the evening, found the devastation to the spawn. 95% of the eggs that had originally been laid were gone, presumably consumed by the father. The remaining eggs that weren't eaten yet had fungused up. This didn't last long as the father soon made short work of them after I had returned home. It was quite disappointing to see this potentially great spawn turn to naught. However, I understand that many first-time parents are not the best at it and often eat the entire spawn so I am hoping for more spawns to occur through (hopefully with a 10 gallon by then!).

Other methods I am going to try is to see how much longer I can leave the female in the tank for. Maybe they will learn to work together and if he doesn't eat the fungused eggs, that she could possibly do so. Another method to try would be to remove the male (after the female) once I notice he is not doing his job as well and then remove any of the fungused eggs manually myself. Either way, I hope to someday see them become the great parents that I know they are.