Description
The ram is the exception that proves a cichlid can live in a planted tank without wrecking it. It measures 5 or 6 cm and combines iridescent blue, yellow and red at an intensity few freshwater fish match. It also has the character of a miniature cichlid: it inspects, decides, defends its corner and recognises whoever approaches.
Its weak point is temperature, and it is the reason behind most failures. It needs water considerably warmer than the community average: between 26 and 30 degrees. At 24 — where most tropical tanks sit — its immunity drops and it falls ill easily. It is not a difficult fish, it is a fish almost always kept too cold.
And there is something else worth knowing before buying. Many shop rams come from mass-production farms with heavily inbred lines and are noticeably more fragile than specialist-bred stock. If yours died early for no apparent reason, you probably did nothing wrong.
Avoid balloon and dyed varieties. The first is a spinal deformity; the second is produced by injecting or dipping the fish in dye, with very high mortality in the process.
Behavior
Peaceful most of the time, and territorial only around its spawning site. It occupies the bottom and middle zone, spending the day inspecting the substrate with a curiosity that draws you in.
It is kept as a pair. Two males in a medium tank will clash, and a group without space ends with one dominant and several harassed.
It lives well with cardinals, rummy-nose, other Amazonian characins, corydoras, otocinclus and bristlenose. An Amazon biotope suits them all, and they tolerate the high temperature the ram needs.
Avoid housing it with fast, greedy fish such as danios or barbs, because it eats slowly and goes without; cool or temperate species, incompatible with its 28 degrees; and other cichlids, even dwarf ones, unless the tank is large.
With shrimp: adult Amano usually survive; Neocaridina and their fry do not. It is a cichlid and it forages the bottom.
An honest warning about lifespan: it lives two or three years, often less. This is not a fish that stays with you for a decade, and it is worth knowing before growing attached.
Habitat
Mikrogeophagus ramirezi is native to the Orinoco llanos in Venezuela and Colombia. The water is shallow, very warm, extremely soft and acidic, with fine sand, leaf litter and marginal vegetation. Practically no flow.
Its three requirements follow from that, and all three are often broken:
- Sustained warmth. Between 26 and 30 degrees, as the norm rather than a peak.
- Soft, acidic water. In hard water it survives, but it does not breed and lives less.
- Soft substrate. It roots through the bottom for food; coarse gravel prevents that and damages its mouth. Fine sand.
And a fourth requirement that comes not from habitat but from its fragility: a mature tank. The ram is among the fish that cope worst with a freshly cycled aquarium. Wait a few months before adding one.
Details
🌊 Water parameters
🐠 Minimum tank size
Breeding
It is one of the finest spectacles a home aquarium can give you, and it happens with almost no input from you.
It forms stable pairs and spawns on a flat stone the two of them clean together, or in a pit dug in the sand. From then on both parents tend the spawn: fanning it, removing bad eggs and taking turns on watch.
When the fry hatch, they carry them in their mouths to previously dug pits and keep moving them around. Later they shepherd them across the tank like a flock, one parent leading and the other bringing up the rear. Seeing it once justifies the whole fish.
The first spawns are usually lost: eaten or abandoned through inexperience. That is normal and does not mean anything is wrong; after two or three attempts they get the hang of it.
Diet
Omnivorous, and in the wild it sifts the substrate: it takes sand in its mouth, passes it through the gills and keeps whatever invertebrates it finds. It is fascinating behaviour to watch, and it can only do it if the bottom is sand.
- Staple: quality sinking granules, sized for a small mouth.
- Supplement: frozen brine shrimp, daphnia and mosquito larvae, three times a week. This is what it most appreciates and what maintains its colour.
- Fry: brine shrimp nauplii.
The practical problem is not what it eats but whether it gets there. It is slow and methodical, and in a community with fast fish it systematically goes without. Feed it in its own area, or use the moment when the others are busy at the surface.
Do not rely on floating flake: it is not a surface fish and will not go up for it.
Plan your next aquarium
Is this fish right for you? Plan a suitable aquarium before setting it up.