# Bolivian rams and cory cats?



## doxiegirl (Aug 24, 2009)

I bought two small Bolivian rams (not sure of sex yet) and set up a 20g long for them as a quarantine tank... got excited about it and started to set it up as a real tank with plants and driftwood! I added 5 black neon tetras and would like to add some cories to keep my sand stirred up a little- I figure they would move the top level of sand when they eat and prevent too much algae from growing. Since the rams stay near the bottom would they take offense to cories being in their territory? I have another planted tank with cories but they are the only bottom fish in there. The rams are so neat and I want to keep them happy.


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## SCARF_ACE1981 (Sep 27, 2004)

i have two boliviam rams myself in a 30g long w/ two corys and they don't pay any attention to the corys. they are more busy chasing each other(i think they are of the same sex). if yours are a pair they will be too busy getting their groove on and won't bother with the corys


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## coolingeffect (Jun 11, 2010)

when i had rams they constantly attacked corys when they were spawning. Never seemed to do any damage but the corys seemed to have trouble understanding the boundary into ram territory,


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## illy-d (Nov 6, 2005)

Cories might get picked at/on if the Rams breed. If the Rams don't breed they probably won't pay attention to the cory's.


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## ridley25 (Jan 5, 2008)

I've had Bolivians with 4 cories for almost 2 years in a 29. The Rams only spawned once but they have never hassled the cories. My BN Pleco is the undisputed tank boss.

kevin


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## MonteSS (Dec 8, 2008)

Ya. I have three Bolivians and four cories with no probs. The Rams squable but pay no attention to the cats. Mine are all female I think and dont spawn.

...Bill


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## hollyfish2000 (Aug 23, 2007)

I never had trouble with rams with cories. But I should note that I doubt that cory behavior has any impact on algae growth in a tank substrate. They do a great job of clean-up, though . . . If you want something to deal with algae and have a small tank, consider a trio of otos.


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## aquariam (Feb 11, 2010)

hollyfish2000 said:


> I never had trouble with rams with cories. But I should note that I doubt that cory behavior has any impact on algae growth in a tank substrate. They do a great job of clean-up, though . . . If you want something to deal with algae and have a small tank, consider a trio of otos.


They don't eat algae.


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## hollyfish2000 (Aug 23, 2007)

aquariam said:


> hollyfish2000 said:
> 
> 
> > I never had trouble with rams with cories. But I should note that I doubt that cory behavior has any impact on algae growth in a tank substrate. They do a great job of clean-up, though . . . If you want something to deal with algae and have a small tank, consider a trio of otos.
> ...


Uh, yeah. My point. His original post suggests that the cories would "mix up the sand" and keep the algae down. I was trying to nicely point out this is not the case . . .


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## DeadFishFloating (Oct 9, 2007)

If it's a sand substrate, the rams should dig through the substrate enough to turn it over. I would suggest panda cories as they are one the smallest normal corydoras species. I would also look to add 3 otocinclus as well.


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## doxiegirl (Aug 24, 2009)

Thanks for the advice- I know that the cories wouldn't eat the algae, but right now I have a coralife 24" NO T5 over the tank and I'm getting green algae on the sand. Not too much food is left on the substrate since I'm feeding lightly for the current stock of 2 rams and 5 black neons. I'm guessing that it's too much light for the amount of plants without CO2... I was planning on adding more plants, hopefully that will help gobble up the nutrients. I will add some otos, probably this weekend, I need to get more for my other planted tank anyways. But I didn't think that otos would eat the algae accumulating on the sand and that cories would keep it stirred up enough to help with that.

Hopefully I will be combining this tank with my other planted tank in the near future to make a 40g breeder SA setup with tetras, the rams, an angel, cories and otos. Or I might use my 60 gallon if I can move my mbunas into a 125... Anyway, I was trying to find an easy solution to make the tank look good for the time being.


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