# What is the minimum size tank for a Bolivian Ram pair?



## iLuvAngels (May 14, 2008)

Once I figure out which two of my rams are the pair (If they EVER spawn again!) I want to move them to their own tank.

What is the minimum size tank for a Breeding Pair of Bolivian Rams? I also want yo get a breeder tank for the babies.

Just trying to figure out what I need for a Bolivian Ram pair and give it a go with trying to breed them.

Thanks!


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## BelieveInBlue (Jul 17, 2011)

I breed rams and apistos in 20H or 20L tanks, and raise the fry in anything from 20-55s, depending on how many I have.


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## Mr.Dempsey (Jan 4, 2012)

They would be okay in a 20 gallon.


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## iLuvAngels (May 14, 2008)

BelieveInBlue said:


> I breed rams and apistos in 20H or 20L tanks, and raise the fry in anything from 20-55s, depending on how many I have.


Thanks
Do you keep the fry in the tank with the parents at all? If so, for how long? Finally, what do you do with all the fry?


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## BelieveInBlue (Jul 17, 2011)

I keep them with the parents in the breeding tank for 2-4 weeks, and I remove the fry at the first sign of aggression/a new spawn. I raise the fry on BBS until they're 2-3 months old, and then I start to cull them. For bolivian rams, I usually cull ~75% of a spawn.


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## iLuvAngels (May 14, 2008)

What do you mean by cull 75% of a spawn?


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## BelieveInBlue (Jul 17, 2011)

Remove and euthanize about 75% of the fry that are produced; it keeps the gene pool decently strong, prevents saturating the market, but still turns in a nice profit.


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## iLuvAngels (May 14, 2008)

Just bought a 30 gallon for my Bolivians. I wanted to get a 30 Gallon Breeder but for some reason I had difficulty finding one so I settled for the 30 Gallon. Really did want that extra width though as I love my 65 Gallon tank because it's so wide. I'm planning on getting some CaribSea Tahitian Moon Sand. I already have a tank with black substrate and I really like it but I'm thinking of mixing the black moon sand with sunset gold. Have no idea what it will look like so who knows. Also hope that the colors of my Rams pop against the mixture of sand.

Oh, I actually had to euthanize a sick Tetra of mine in ice water a few days ago. Was the first time I had to do that so I'm happy that it was over in a matter of seconds. Guess that was preparing me for what I'll have to do to some of the Bolivian Ram babies in the future.


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## aquariam (Feb 11, 2010)

BelieveInBlue said:


> Remove and euthanize about 75% of the fry that are produced; it keeps the gene pool decently strong, prevents saturating the market, but still turns in a nice profit.


 :lol:

You remove any that have any sort of deformity or weakness and if anything feed them to a large predator but just killing your own fry is mean. There has to be a reason for any kind of cull, and when you do it, there has to be a point to that fish passing. Like a flowerhorn. Even still unless you have kinked spines and the like, if you're just selling into the mass market, I'd just sell anything that's not deformed. If you're selling to collectors, seperate your fish into A and B grade, and the C grade are feeders. But never just cull and flush. Even if you cull humanely with clove oil etc. Not cool.


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## iLuvAngels (May 14, 2008)

ummmm... that's what I mean. I'm not going to "kill" any fish just to do it. Of course there would have to be something wrong with it for me to do something like that. I was just saying that I did all I could to help my Tetra get better for many weeks and finally came to the conclusion that leaving him in the state he was in, in spite of doing everything I could to get him better, was worse than me having to euthanize him. I never had to do that in the past and it was very hard for me but once I finally did it, it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be because I knew he was better off.

I'm trying to set up a seperate tank for my Bolivians to breed, give life. I'm not going to just pull out the fry and kill them just because I want to get rid of them!


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## ahud (Aug 22, 2009)

If people culled more there would not be such crappy stock circulating... I never understood the two extremes, people love to complain about bad quality fish, but hate to cull. The two go hand in hand.


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## BelieveInBlue (Jul 17, 2011)

I cull so much not only to keep the quality high, but also to avoid flooding my market; when I was breeding rams, I had about a dozen pairs going at them same time (both blue and bolivian rams), and if I didn't cull so heavily, every fishkeeper within 100km of me would have 3-4 pairs at the end of a year. Plus, many of my breeding pairs came from the same supplier, so the chances of inbreeding were probably higher than if I got them from different suppliers. Also, simply removing those with physical deformities is not enough; genetic diseases and weaknesses may not show up until a fish, or any individual of any species for that matter, gets older, and some may not show up for generations; there are also traits which appear immediately, but are not very obvious until much later on. if you think culling is such a bad thing, just take a look at the fancier strains of guppies; those things are so imbred that most of them barely manage to stay alive long enough to sell. I'm guessing noone wants that to happen to widely kept dwarves like rams either? Though I can see the man-made strains of rams heading in that direction soon.

PS: when I cull, I either use the culled fish as feeders, or I put them in a bag of water and put the bag in the freezer.


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