I came across some German Blue Rams (Mikrogeophagus ramirezi) aka GBRs over the weekend. I picked out what I thought was a male and female, turns out I was correct. Almost immediately after them getting use to the tank they were swimming together. To my surprise on only the fourth day of having the pair I noticed them acting a little odd and I would say looking back now they were cleaning/preparing a top crevice in some Mopani wood. I just dismissed it and didn’t think much of it as I’ve never bred or even kept these fish before. In the first picture below the female is on top of the male, she has the pink rosy colored belly. Other pic shows only make German Ram.

Later in the day I notice both the male and female hanging around this crevice as if they were guarding something. I look in and see eggs situated and both parents were attending to the eggs and chasing off the glowlight tetras, although the tetras did not seem to notice or care much about the eggs at first.I pondered on what to do as I do not have much experience in breeding. I decided I would just leave the tetras in and see how it plays out as I wasn’t really prepared and the parents seemed to be doing an excellent job. So I left everything as is.

The next day, seemed as the time got later things have changed. The male has fully taken over care of the eggs, he will drive the female away quickly . He has become pretty aggressive and he also chases the tetras away more now than ever. The tetras have noticed the eggs now and try to go in for a snag. However there are still close to the same amount of eggs as originally and the male seems to be doing a really good job at protecting them. Stay tuned to see how things play out for me. I would like to get some fry and raise them, but I realize this could go wrong due to lack of preparation — oh and did I mention I have to move in less than two weeks! Fortunately it seems like it is common for GBRs to do it again and again after doing it once.