Keeping Apistogramma cacatuoides with Rams?

[Cheong123]

Has been looking at Ap. Caca and would plan to own a pair in my community tank consisting of some tetras and a male german blue ram. The male german blue is quite fierce. Had another balloon ram once and it nipped its fin until I took out the balloon ram.

So I was wondering if I could introduce a pair of Caca into my tank? will they fight?

Any AQ members had such experience?

[mictok]

It will be world war 3 if your tank is less than 2ft and from the way you describe the blue ram,it is very aggressive.
I used to have a common tank of a pair of rams and apisto.I guess that they are able to shared the 2ft tank is because they are raise up together from juvenile stage.New addtion will be bully by them.

[iwishweallcouldwin]

my friend used to house a pair of vjieta males and a pair of german rams in a 3ft, its still world war 3 but no fatal wounds of course, hiding spaces is the key.

[Cheong123]

Sounds like they could not be housed together. Mine is a 3 ft tank. Got some hiding places but then again, I won't want the new introduction to be constantly in the hiding.

I can envisage the trauma I have to go through, if I'm a fish, constantly hiding from a bully.

Maybe I should shelve it off and intro a female ram instead. But I had tried pairing it with a female twice. One died, the other was constantly running away from him until she clamp her fin so tightly until finally I have to remove her from the tank. anyway, she is dead too after removing from the tank.

Really like the Cacas...

[fireblade]

remove the ram and add in the cacas...

[DCguy]

I have kept these species together many times in many different sized tanks. The most important thing is to give them both territories they can inhabit. This means setting the tank with a couple of clearing areas surrounded by cover.

Here is a small shot of a tank that housed breeding pairs of each species. The cacatuoides inhabit the area to the right with the Rams on the left. The cacatuoides successfully raised their fry in this tank but the Ram fry would be eaten about the second day free swimming unless I removed them. The tank is less than 8 gallons - 23"x8"x10"



This photo is from http://dwarfcichlid.com/Good_habitat.php If you go to this page you can get an elarged version of this photo.

DC

[Toshika]

i think you should add in the Caca and take out the rams. on my personal experience, rams are pretty much an agressive sort of fish that will probably attack anything in its way. my apisto got wack by it till it gave up, even the tetras and corys get it too at times. However i must say that the german rams are indeed splendid in colour and will look good with some hardy schooling fishes like rasbora agilis or red line torpedo.just my thoughts...:>

[Cheong123]

I would not like to take out the ram actually. It has being with me since I started my fish keeping hobby (which was not very long ago). Got attached to it already.

And I do not have any more proper tank to house it (got only one more small hospital tank)

Maybe I would try to rescape a bit and provide more hiding places before introducing the Cacas. Will have to do some planning before buying the Cacas... Guess, that's the fun thing about fish keeping....

[stormchild]

In my opinion, you should have no problem. A little skirmishes here and there should be expected. But world war is unlikely considering your tank is pretty densely planted.

[Puffer]

I used to house a pair of german rams with some cardinals, bristlenose plecos and shrimps in a densely planted 3 feet tank. It was harmonious until the ram pair decided to lay eggs and shift eggs to anywhere they had wished. Places where they housed their eggs/wrigglers would be 'strictly out of bound' to all living creatures. When I later transferred the same pair to a 2 feet tank with only 3 otos, the poor otos were constantly 'attacked'.

I knew it was the natural instinct of ciclids to guard their eggs, but having kept discus before, I thought german rams were much more ferocious.