I believe it's described as loose pair bonding. You'll know by the behavior if they start cleaning and defending a site. I never bred goldens but I'd bet they'll color up noticeably. To get rams to breed, I kept them in warm (warmer than ideal for cory cats) clean ideally soft and neutral water and fed appropriately sized live and frozen foods when I could. Honestly if they are happy in a community aquarium they'll probably pair off and breed at some point. Your male will likely bond with one female and they may chase the third wheel pretty relentlessly. There are a few current threads going on journaling ram breeding so you couldn't have asked at a better time.

 

Thank You! they are going into a community tank im not necessarily trying to breed them but if it happens then that would be great. Anything specific i should put in the tank for them to breed on. Currently there are a bunch of plants and black lava rock so there are not a lot of smooth surfaces except for the amazon sword leaves.

 

You'll want to raise fry in a separate tank, most folks just breed the pair in it. I used 20 longs, but have since learned that a 5.5 works great. If you put a flowerpot or such in the tank, that will be easy enough to move to the rearing tank (if they lay on it). They may eat the eggs the first try. Have brine shrimp eggs on hand.

 

Will do thanks again for the info

 

Okay so the male has definitely taken to one female, i noticed last night the female guarding a corner of the tank from the corys and the other female. I'm taking out the corys today so they will not be an issue anymore. It is a bare bottom take so i put a few larger river stones i had on hand in to possibly give them a spot to spawn on. Is there anything i am missing besides wating?

 

Some helpful tips:

*Feed a live food like BBS to condition pair.
* Temperature 80-82 degrees.
*Add some plants from another tank if have them to add infusoria ( small minute microorganisms that are an additional early food source). Think mosses: java moss, subwassertang, etc.. Java fern works great as a spawning medium as well.
* Make sure lighting is not too bright.

 

OK will do thank you!

 

does it have to be live food or could it be frozen?

 

The parents will breed just using flakes; the kids really need micro-worm and then bbs. Also the kids are very very fragile and need very clean water so you will need to use something like a turkey blaster to remove any debris in the fry tank.

 

Ok so i took the cory cats out and turned the heat up to around 81. there is definitely more action going on so should i take one female out and leave his "favorite" in or leave both females with the male

 

Sorry for all the questions but the tank is currently bare bottom with a few large river stones in one corner and then a small anubias between them. IT also has just a few fake plants I had from a while ago i just tossed in for something to hide in. Is there anything i should change in it?

 

Add moss. Its important.

 

When they breed you will have to take out the second female. They may not kill her but they will definitely beat her up. Also it helps to have a small disposable dither fish in as they sometime beat each other up.
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Conversely if you are not going to let the parents raise the frys the first couple of weeks then you can either remove them or the eggs when they are laid.