Fish Tank Maintenance Tips: Always turn off the electricity before working in or around your tank. Use a powerstrip connected to a gfci outlet and all you have to do to turn off the electricity is flip a switch. Also, use drip loops on all of the cords or hang the power strip on the wall, thereby causing the cords to loop before reaching the plug in. Read the aquarium electrical safety article.
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Mikrogeophagus ramirezi is a species of freshwater fish endemic to the Orinoco River basin, in the savannahs of Venezuela and Colombia in South America.[2] The species has been examined in studies on fish behaviour[4] and is a popular aquarium fish, traded under a variety of common names including Ram, Blue ram, German blue ram, Asian ram, Butterfly cichlid, Ramirez’s dwarf cichlid, Dwarf butterfly cichlid and Ramirezi.[2][5][6][7][8] The species is a member of the family Cichlidae and is included in subfamily Geophaginae.[2][9]
The wild-type of the species has a yellow-green background colour punctuated with blue dots that extend into the dorsal, anal and caudal fins. Wild-type specimens also have seven faint, interrupted dark vertical stripes on the flanks and one stripe vertically downwards across the head through the eye. The vertical stripe through the eye aside, the second bar on the flank is frequently the most intense, appearing as a dark black spot in the relatively unbarred, aquarium-bred strains of the species.[5] The species is sexually dimorphic, females being smaller in size, having more pink pigmentation on their ventral region and having less developed fin rays in the anterior region of the dorsal fin.[5] Males reach a maximum length of 7 cm (2.7 in).[6]
Unlike their relatives in the genus Apistogramma, the natural habitat of M. ramirezi occurs in the warm, (25.5-29.5 ºC, 78-85 ºF), acidic (pH 5) water courses in the llanos savannahs of Venezuela and Colombia.[5][7][10] The water at sites were M. ramirezi has been found to occur is generally slow-flowing, contains few dissolved minerals, and ranges in colour from clear to darkly stained with tannins.[5] The species is typically only found where cover in the form of aquatic or emerse vegetation is available.[5]
Once sexually mature, the species forms monogamous pairs prior to spawning.[7] The species is known to lay its small 0.9 – 1.5 mm, adhesive eggs on flattened stones[7][10][11] or directly into small depressions dug in the gravel.[5] Like many cichlids, M. ramirezi practices biparental brood care with both the male and the female playing roles in egg-tending and territorial defence.[5][7] Typical clutch size for the species is 150-300 eggs,[5][6] though larger clutches up to 500 have been reported.[10] Parental M. ramirezi have been observed to fan water over their eggs which hatch in 40 hours at 29 ºC (84.2 ºF). The larvae are not free-swimming for 5 days after which they are escorted by the male or the female in dense school for foraging.[5]
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