[crimsonbull57]

I believe my female Bolivian Ram is sick. I have just noticed this over the past couple days. She has lost quite a bit of color and is breathing rapidly(I added an airstone today).
The tank is fully cycled and I just changed the water on Sunday. I haven't done anything diffrently to the tank and I haven't noticed anything unusual about the tank or the fish. The only diffrence is the male has been chasing her to the corner of the tank.
I was hoping somone could share some insight.

Thank you

 

[lauraleellbp]

How big is the tank? Does the female have places to hide from the male and be able to swim freely out of his sight?

You may need to separate them, sounds to me like she's being bullied to death. It's not uncommon for rams to kill each other.

 

[crimsonbull57]

Its 20 gallons (long). It has some driftwood structures and is Planted. When I got them they swam together and were fine. Ocassionaly they would become aggressive to each other and then they would go back to exploring the tank together. That lasted aprox. 2 months, untill a few days ago.

 

[lauraleellbp]

I'd try and separate them, at least long enough to give the female time to recover. Moving her to a QT tank would be ideal, especially if it does turn out that she's sick with something that might be contagious.