Rams - :( too expensive

[wayne]

Some are cheaper, some are more expensive. They're all better than rams (I'm biased). What you pay for rams depends on what you want. I'd rather buy an expensive good quality ram than a cheap one that dies 2 weeks later.

 

[TaffyFish]

I tend to agree with wayne and Lotus on this - you'll get what you pay for. The key is knowing what to look for.

I would also much prefer apisto's or kribs to rams, I'd rather have interesting and complex behaviour than colour.

 

[ecotank]

I kinda like the way rams look...very colorful and quite entertaining too

 

[Cichlid-Man]

I do like them when they are like that eco, but most i've seen are faded out prob. because of bad bloodlines and inbreeding. Must be alabama rams? Ohhhh cheap shot that the Alabamaians

But unless they are like that i'd much rather prefer an Apisto.

 

[ecotank]

Yea, it does go back to that you get what you pay for thing, I saw some rams for 5.99, but they didn't look anything like the ones above which I paid 14.99 for. Lotus wanted rams, so I sure wasn't about to cut corners and get cheap, dull looking ones. They have become one of my favorites now, just so colorful

 

[mike the zealot]

I've kept rams, A. cacatuoides, and A. agassizi. My agassizi is easily the most beautiful, as it has the fin color of the cacatuoides (I have the red variety) and the body color of the ram (pearlescent blue scales that fade into greens and purples depending on the angle of the light)

All 3 species have been great to watch, it's really a matter of personal preference, though rams tend to be a little less hardy and generally over-bred. I don't like the look of any of the rams I've seen at stores the past year. =(

Oh yeah, no dwarf cichlid thread is complete without the obligatory Dave Soares link: www.apistogrammaidiots.com

 

[MrMup04]

Originally posted by wayne
Some are cheaper, some are more expensive. They're all better than rams (I'm biased). What you pay for rams depends on what you want. I'd rather buy an expensive good quality ram than a cheap one that dies 2 weeks later.

I'd have to disagree, it depends on how well you take care of the fish. I've heard some stories where people would buy fish from cheap quality places and in the end, the fish that they bought end up living strong and wealthy. Now the price didn't raise up becuase of the quality of their fish, it only raised up becuase it was to replace the shipment of the rams that they ordered weeks ago and came in dead. So maybe that's why it's expensive at the momment.

 

[wayne]

If they came in dead they wouldn't have paid.... that's normally how it works.
I too have heard of people buying fish that looked terrible and grew up strng and good, and frankly the majority of rams do look terrible in the stores. You have to look for bent fins, vitality other things, but there are a ton of really poor quality rams floating around now, and you can't repair 10 gens of inbreeding or breeding out of poorer and poorer quality stock with good water and a good diet.. Good quality is the exception rather than the rule.