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well it is good to hear that the rams are doing alright. i didn't realize they were that sensitive. A friend of mine showed me a picture of one today and now i know why you are so excited. best of luck.

They're doing fine this morning. Seem to have gotten over the change and are swimming around checking out their new temporary home. Both of them ate breakfast this morning so things are looking good!

Thier colors don't show up very well in this tank as it's underneath my 29 gallon and I don't have a plug for the light at present...(all the other outlets are taken up..lol)..I'm already planning a setup for the 20 long I put aside...haha..but I'm afraid it will be awhile before I can get that up and running. What fun ! <img src="/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" />

well I got the pearls I wanted for the 75 and impulse bought a paradise fish. they are in quarantine and I have to see if they are going to get along, or if i need to take the paradise back before i get attached and have to get yet another tank. I stopped into a pet store that i swore i would not buy another fish from, and low and behold they had the pearl gouramis i have been looking for, so i got them. hope it wasnt another mistake. wish me luck all the fish looked pretty good-we shall see.

what size tank and how many rams are you going to get, Emg?

Maybe the store just got them in and havent' had much chance to ruin them yet....Hope they work out !

Those rams are a lark ! They love the bubbler I have in a back corner. They'll swim down to the bottom, ride the bubbles up to the top, then go back to the bottom for more...lol.

Here's a picture I posted of those two rams I have. What a pretty fish they are...so many colors on them ! The male is in front...the one with the black spot on his side. The female has a spot too but her's has all these irridescent blue spangles all over it.

This pic definitly doesn't do them justice, but it's not bad.

http://www.bellaonline.com/misc/rateme/photos/photo2479.jpg
http://www.bellaonline.com/misc/rateme/photos/photo2480.jpg

Well, I picked up two more blue rams yesturday...and one of them didn't last more than an hour and a half. I knew at the petstore I probably shouldn't buy that one, but I figured I could put it in the hospital tank I have and keep an eye on it...it would be fine.

Well, haha, it didn't even make it past the acclimation period. The only clue I had at the petstore was the rapid breathing and it did have a stringy poop dangling from it. Otherwise it was colored up nicely and pretty active. Oh well...at least the other one made out o.k.

I have all three of them in the quarentine tank, (figured they all came from the same tank at the store to begin with, so whatever one may have, they all have it) and I believe that I have 2 females and one male. And...joy of joy! two of them seem to have paired up! (hoooray!)

The smaller two have become quite an item in that tank and follow each other around....and the larger of the two..the female I believe..protects the other one from the 3rd fish, who is the big kahuna in the tank.

Gosh, I love this hobby ! Can't figure out why it took me so long to discover this ! <img src="/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" />

Trying to keep this community tank thread going...hope we have some more community enthusiasts come by to post! <img src="/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

My three rams are doing very well. I have been second guessing myself as far as sexing these three fish goes...can't seem to figure it out for sure.
The two I thought had paired up are sometimes on, sometimes off...lol...typical teenagers I guess...

The 6 long finned danios I have in the 29 don't show much in the way of schooling behavior as I picked up a variety of "flavors" because what I had read up on said that you can mix and match. I think that was a mistake, even though they breed with each other (CONSTANTLY!!) with no regard to style of dress. I had one female I had to take out to give her a breather. She apparently was the "favorite" among the males because they just wouldn't leave her alone. She lost part of a fin and was swimming all hunched up and tired looking. She's happily sharing the 10 gallon with my neon male betta. He seems a bit perplexed by this zipping darting maniac in his tank, but otherwise, they're getting along fine. Feeding's not a problem...lol...I put some flakes in there for her and she zaps them all up before he even knows whats going on !

I'll try and reintroduce her after she rests up a bit and her fin heals up some. By the way, I have one zebra, 2 leopard, 2 blues and one golden. Not sure what to do with them..I may keep the zebra (or the golden) in the 29 (they're the most colorful) and just put the others in the 15 gallon quarenteen tank to keep that tank cycled. I'll get some more zebras/goldens to put in the 29...maybe that will help settle that tank down a bit. I'll wait to get the rams settled though.

just busy with school or i would be here more. i am just logging on to check out a few things and relax.

the pearls i thought i got were actually moonlight instead. i was sooo disappointed. i thought they were just pale from shipping, but they never colored up. i asked if the store would take them back and exchange, but they won't. oh well i knew better then to buy from there. at least they are healthy. i also picked up a paradise fish at the same time. he keeps things lively in there.

i am now trying to figure if i could still get three pearls by ordering online, but it is questionable because i don't want to overload the tank. right now i have about 65" of fish in that tank of 75 gallons once they all reach full size. it was not how i planned it, because moonlights get to be 6", whereas pearls only get to be 4-4.5. oh they are pretty just not what i planned.

the pictures of your rams are great. they are such pretty fish. what size tank and how many are you putting in it?

oh and i learned the same way about danios, mine were really aggressive with each other. we got spotted and leopards- not a good thing. come to think of it i got them from the same store- think i need to stay out of there. well talk again in a few days. good luck bettanut

Thanks Kscarlet,

Right now the only community tank I have is the 29 gallon. Everything else I have has bettas in them..lol...no wait, my daughter has a 10 gallon community in her room with 2 guppies, 2 emerald corys (they're still small), and 1 glo light tetra..her partner commited suicide by jumping out of the tank and landing in the box of aquarium salt...lol...he was quite well preserved when we found him. We haven't replaced him, but his partner seems to be doing fine with the guppies.

I finally put a pair of the rams in the 29 yesturday. They seem to like it in there just fine and are busy checking the place out trying to find a good spot to claim as thier own.

I think I finally figured out how to tell the girls from the boys...but not entirely sure. You have to look closely at the first 3 tines of their dorsal fin. In both the male and female the first part of the dorsal is very prominent but on the male it's the first 3 tines that stick out, especially the 2nd one...on the female the first 3 are smaller but added with the few tines behind that the 'crest' looks almost the same as the males. At least that's about the only difference that I could see..lol...becuase their colors always seem to be changing.


Anyway, in this 29 I have the 5 danios, 2 rams and 2 neon dwarf gouramis. Had a bit of bad planning in the choice of fish I think...danios prefer cooler temps, anywhere from 65-74...and the gouramis and the rams perfer the temps at around 80. Right now I have the temp set at 78 but I was thinking of putting the danios in the 15 gallon and turning up the temp in the 29 to 80 and getting a few more gouramis...or some other fish which likes the warmer temps. Boy, wouldn't I just like some discus..lol...but my tanks not big enough for 3 of them and I think they prefer a species tank to themselves.

Hmm...the only thing about a warmer tank is finding some bottom cleaner fish that like warmer water. Cories are great and don't get that large, but they prefer cooler water too. Otos are great for eating algae, but they really don't eat the trash on the bottom. I'll have to do some looking around to see what might work....maybe a large snail, as long as they're the kind that don't overproduce themselves and don't eat up the plants. I have some anubias, sword, wisteria and micro sword..which are doing ok, but I'm sure would prefer more lighting. I'm trying to figure what to do to get a twin bulb light on that tank.

Anyway, having fun..lol...