Tropical Fish Forum

Tropical Fish Keeping Help and Advice => Fish Species => Dwarf Cichlids => Topic started by: Alex_N on March 26, 2016, 02:43:48 PM

Title: Rams Vs Kribensis.
Post by: Alex_N on March 26, 2016, 02:43:48 PM
I was wondering if anyone had kept both breeds and is there a big difference on the way they go about the breeding habits. Specifically the territory defending aspects.

The Rams would make a nice colour contrast against the green back drop of my plants but I ruled out dwarf cichlids due to their breeding habits.
Title: Re: Rams Vs Kribensis.
Post by: Sue on March 26, 2016, 03:24:18 PM
I think the main difference is that rams spawn on rocks while kribs spawn in caves. Both can be aggressive while defending eggs or fry.
Rams can have problems in community tanks, depending how far back in their lineage the last wild ancestors were. Wild rams need very soft water in the high 20's C. If the shop rams have had a recent wild ancestor, they will need it too. Breeders often introduce a wild fish to their programmes to widen the gene pool.

Both rams and kribs are fish that need to chose their own mates. If you buy either, look for two that appear to have paired up in the shop tank.

If you just want blue fish, maybe Apistogramma borelli? The males are blue though apitso females are virtually always yellow.




What about the kribs in your signature, do you have them or is that a wish list?
Title: Re: Rams Vs Kribensis.
Post by: Alex_N on March 26, 2016, 03:40:24 PM
Ahhh I'll give them a miss, I can't be doing with two tanks with two aggressive  breeding pairs ,also I have hard water.
I do have the Kribs, they've not long bred either, all the kids are going to be called Jesus as they should hatch to wrigglers on Monday lol.
I never considered the Apistos, I shall have to take a look.
Title: Re: Rams Vs Kribensis.
Post by: Richard W on March 26, 2016, 03:45:53 PM
But Apistos also need soft water.
Bolivian rams Mikrogeophagus altispinosus might be an alternative, or Golden Dwarf Cichlid Nannacara anomala or African Butterfly Cichlid Anomalochromis thomasi .
But all cichlids are more or less aggressive when breeding.
Title: Re: Rams Vs Kribensis.
Post by: Sue on March 26, 2016, 03:50:48 PM
I've had some species of apistos breed in my tanks. They were never overly aggressive, usually just lunging at fish that came too near but not making contact.





Read up on apistos before buying. Some need soft water, others are OK in moderately hard water. Some need to be kept as a pair they chose themselves, others are harem fish ie 1 male can be kept with several females. But for a 60 litre tank there isn't enough floor space for more than one female.
Title: Re: Rams Vs Kribensis.
Post by: Alex_N on March 26, 2016, 04:04:58 PM
I will definitely read up on them, as I do before all purchases.

Oh they wouldn't be for the 60L tank, they're an idea for my 180L. My signature needs updating lol
Title: Re: Rams Vs Kribensis.
Post by: Sue on March 26, 2016, 04:14:20 PM
In that case, with harem breeders you should be OK with 2 females, maybe even 3 if the tank is fairly long.
Title: Re: Rams Vs Kribensis.
Post by: Alex_N on March 27, 2016, 07:20:45 AM
It's 100cm in length.
If I'm honest I'll probably give both Rams and Apistos a miss for a couple of reasons.
1). The tank is in my front room, so I wanted a more relaxed and calm tank with slow, floaty stock.
2). Most importantly my water hardness would be to much of an issue, it wouldn't be fair on the fish.
Title: Re: Rams Vs Kribensis.
Post by: glitch74 on May 17, 2017, 11:21:51 PM
Would rams and kribs in the same tank be ok? The community tool hasn't flagged it as a problem
Title: Re: Rams Vs Kribensis.
Post by: Matt on May 18, 2017, 07:13:24 AM
You're likely to get different views on this, due to the individual characters of individual fish, some may have been able to get this to work in the past in a very large tank with very few fish, but for me the standard answer should always be a no... they come from very different parts of the world and they communicate in different ways and would easily misinterpret each others going abouts as aggression. Especially if either species bred in the tank the rams likely wouldn't survive then experience against the more aggressive kribs which lets not forget are twice the size of the rams!  :yikes:
Title: Re: Rams Vs Kribensis.
Post by: Sue on May 18, 2017, 10:12:24 AM
I agree with Matt. Having more than one species of cichlid in a tank is always risky but cichlids from different continents should never be mixed.

And just for completion I will add that African Rift Lake cichlids should not be mixed with African river cichlids like kribs because of their different water needs. And Central American and South American cichlids shouldn't be mixed for the same reason.