Apistogramma Vs. Ram

Do you know which species of apistogramma they were - there are a lot of them.

The most common ones in the UK are A. cacatuoides, the cockatoo cichlid, and A. agassizi. Both of these will be fine in both soft acid water and slightly hard slightly alkaline water. A. borelli is another that would be fine, though they are less common in shops. The males of all three do have several colour forms, but the females are always greyish when young/stressed and bright yellow when mature, especially when spawning.

I've always had apistos in pairs or trios. I'm not sure about keeping one alone. I have kept them in 60 litres but as just the pair, no other tank mates. The females do get aggressive when they have eggs or fry to defend but mine never actually made contact when I had them with other fish in my 125 litre, they were satisfied with just chasing the others away.
If you had one of the smaller apistos (that's agassizi or borelli from those three) you might get away with a pair in your tank, though they could well pick on the cories if they spawned - though the same applies to rams.



One thing I would comment on from your list. In general, it is not a good idea to keep bettas, male or female, with gouramis. They occupy the same level in the tank and there is likely to be aggression between them. Bear in mind that females are as bad males, and some of them are worse.

It is really down to personal preference with the rams and apistos. Rams, especially if they have recent wild ancestors, do better in soft acidic water. Cockatoo apistos are fine in harder, more alkaline water as well as soft acidic. Electric blue rams have been selectively bred to get the colour possibly resulting in in-bred weaknesses, but so have cockatoo apsitos to get double red, triple red, gold etc. Cockatoo males are quite big at 7.5cm though the females are much smaller; rams grow to around 4cm and would be better suited to a 60 litre tank.

One tip for buying fish like rams, which are very picky about their mates - either buy half a dozen, wait for two to pair up and rehome the rest; or spend quite a long time quietly watching the rams in the shop. Keep very still so they don't know you are there (fish are easily distracted). The males will show aggression to each other, and flare their fins out in warning. If a male allows a female to come very close without a sign of aggression, you have a mated pair. You'll often spot several such pairs. The best way to buy these fish is to take someone with you and when you finally spot the pairs, send your companion to get an assistant while you keep your eyes on your chosen pair. And it needs to be someone who won't get bored - it'll take 15 to 20 mins of quiet watching to be sure you have a pair.

They are the same species so no, not in a 60 litre tank. There are several colour and fin variants of rams - blue, gold, electric blue, long finned, balloon etc but they are all the same species, Mikrogeophagus ramirezi.

Rams (both rams and Bolivian rams) are one of the cichlids that are very picky about mates. You can't put any male and female in the same tank and expect them to like each other. They do need to choose their own partners.