Rams Flashing

[codheadjohn]

I bought a group of various Rams about 10 days ago. One came with popeye, I think it must have got injured in the catching, because I didn't see any in the tank with it. This one was replaced by the shop.

I had a gold headed electric blue die last night, but I think that was a weak one. It came with a crooked spine and never had fins spread out, but it was full of character and would swim right up to me at feeding, to I liked him. Last night the other same one was looking very subdued and not eating after being the dominant fish for the first 10 days. This one had a gill issue, where one gill was opening much further than the other, but it seemed healthy until it literally turned like a switch.

I've noticed two other doing a bit of flashing against plants and the substrate. After being in for a couple of days, I noticed a couple of spots of ich on them, but haven't treated because my hope is that they are strong enough to fight it off rather than stressing them out with meds or temperature changes.

Is flashing something to worry about? One of the ones that was doing it has her ovipositor out and is very brightly coloured. There's a little bit of pairing behaviour, but then she seems to get bored and swim off. The other one that's flashing is the other more dominant fish.

edited to add, the flashing isn't all the frequent, maybe two or three times in an hour watching them.

[plankton]

How many rams, what types and size of tank (also water hardness)?
I suspect there's been fighting if gill covers are being damaged.
The "flashing" sounds like it might be practice spawning.

[codheadjohn]

How many rams, what types and size of tank (also water hardness)?
I suspect there's been fighting if gill covers are being damaged.
The "flashing" sounds like it might be practice spawning.

Sorry, I believe the fish arrived with its gill like that, or happened as it was being caught. It was like that from day 1 and it was still the dominant fish.

8 rams (now 7), 5ft x 2ft tank. Water is 5dGh out the tap. 3dKh measured in the tank, but my TDS pen says 167ppm, which I wonder if the tannins are affecting. 0/0/0ish. It did measure a small nitrite spike, but then a re-test before a water change said 0 and 0 again after the change, so I put it down to a not clean tube to start with.

I wondered that about the flashing. The 2 doing it were the 2 that were pairing up. But they were also flashing when nowhere near each other.

[codheadjohn]

I noticed the small one flashing Thursday night, that's definitely not been involved in any mating and I doubt it's sexually mature yet.

After the water change yesterday, another had an ich spot. There's only ever a couple of spots. Will the fish fight these off without me doing anything? I don't want to change things and stress them out more.

[plankton]

What temperature are you keeping them at?
Are they all Blue rams (or colour morphs)?

[codheadjohn]

2 blue, 2 electric blue and 2 gold rams. All look very active and eating well. No fighting or bullying, they get on well except for the odd chase to keep the pecking order in check.

Kept at 27C

[plankton]

The tank is probably big enough, as long as you have a lot of "lines-of-sight" breaks.
I've always been wary of cichlids behaving like cichlids though.

[codheadjohn]

I'm not too worried about fighting, it's actually better than I expected and there's loads of places for them to get out the way. Although I find them to be pretty stupid and always wanting to be in the same place at the same time. It's the worry about disease. Not got much experience with diseases and there's definitely white spot that's been in for 2 weeks, but not going out of control. Just the odd spot swapping between fish

[plankton]

I'd be tempted to treat with something like Esha Exit or Paragon then if it's definitely there.