German blue rams are a beautiful fish with a unique color and pattern that really can catch the eye in your aquarium.
Due to this, the popularity of German blue rams within the fish keeping hobby has been sky rocketing in recent months and shows no signs of slowing down.
Although German blue rams are member of the cichlid genus, they do tend to be a calm cichlid that will rarely cause problems with aggression in your tank.
That said, we have noticed people reaching out for advice on what they can do if they have aggressive German blue rams in their tank or if they have shy German blue rams and adding dither fish can help solve both of these issues.
Due to this, we have decided to publish this article going over what we feel are the best dither fish for German blue rams to try and help our readers work out what species they can add to calm their German blue rams.
Dither Fish For German Blue Rams!
Here is our short list going over what we feel are the best species that can work well as dither fish for German blue rams:-
- Tiger Barbs
- Tetras
- Rasboras
- Danios
- Silver Dollars
- Guppies
Try to just choose a single species from that list and stick to it as your dither fish option, many people try to add multiple options for their dither fish and it usually just causes problems in the tank.
For the most part, you should be trying to plan your tank to match its maximum stocking capability including your German blue rams, the current other fish in the tank, and your dither fish.
Adding dither fish to a heavily stocked tank can overstock it and make the issues with aggression or your German blue rams hiding worse so only add dither fish to an under stocked tank that has space for the new fish.
Tiger Barbs
Our regular readers will know that tiger barbs are our default option for any cichlid based species when it comes to dither fish.
They are an excellent option that have been proven to work time and time again with a huge range of different cichlid species and they also work very well for German blue rams too.
You will need to add between four and six Tiger barbs to your tank as a minimum so double check your tanks stocking capabilities prior to adding your tiger barbs to your tank.
After a couple of days, the tiger barbs should be settled into their new tank and be swimming around and then a couple of days after that, you should see the positive results on your German blue rams.
Tetras
Tetras are another default recommendation as a dither fish for German blue rams due to how cheap they are and how good they can perform when used as a dither fish.
The actual number of tetras that people add to there tank is a common mistake that people make and maintaining a stocking level of six to ten tetras of the same species is the sweet spot in our opinion.
Any less than six and your tetras probably won’t school correctly and they won’t work as a dither fish, anything over ten and their rapid movement and sudden direction changes may stress your German blue rams and make their behavior worse.
We would always recommend that you stick to a single species of tetras too with neon tetras usually being the most common option for most people due to being cheap and easy to find in all good local fish stores.
Rasboras
Rasboras are another excellent choice that can be used as dither fish for German blue rams.
Again, similar to the tetras, you need to maintain a stocking level of six to ten rasboras and make sure they are all the same type of rasbora.
Rasboras are usually slightly larger than tetras while also costing slightly more too so this is the only reason they are lower on our list of dither fish for German blue rams.
When it comes to their actual performance as dither fish and the calming effect they offer your German blue rams, we would place them side by side with tetras and joint second only to tger barbs.
Danios
There are a number of different types of danios that you are able to use as dither fish for your German blue rams and the majority of them can perform well.
You will usually need to add at least six danios to your tank with their color and pattern differences offering some choice on what you can add to your tank.
Although danios are a less common dither fish, there are plenty of people out there using them with their fish be it German blue rams, other types of cichlids or another species all together and finding success.
Guppies
Guppies can be surprisingly effective as a dither fish for your German blue rams and they tend to work better than most people initially realize.
The problem is that guppies can breed rapidly and cause problems with the stocking levels of your tank.
If your guppies do start to rapidly breed then you may end up having more problems with your German blue rams being stressed that in turn can make them hide more or become aggressive.
Thankfully, most local fish stores will have male only and female only guppy tanks so you can choose one and stick to it to prevent the guppies in your German blue rams tank from breeding and causing this problem.
Silver Dollars
Although many people do use silver dollars as a dither fish with a wide range of fish species without issue, there can be hit and miss and we usually recommend against using silver dollars as a dither fish for German blue rams.
The only reason that we have included them in this list is due to how many people successfully use them proving that they can be used but many people end up having issues so if possible, go with another species featured on our list.
