skynoch

congrats scott, you got pictures of the parents??

Thanks I'll post up some pics later today of the parents

Whoa, for under 10mins they are pretty big! And nice pups btw!

Ya they are the largest pups I've had to date and thanks also.

Very nice, how much?

Thanks, I haven't even thought about pricing but they will all go into the city for sale under potomodirect.

Congrats again Scott, they look awesome! :thumbs:

Thanks, just giving you some more reasons to come out for a visit

Great looking setups. Can't wait to get on high speed to see th vids

Mom

Dad

And here she was around 6 months of age

She is looking great.

Thanks, these are turning out exactly like I'd hoped almost a black and white marble motoro. Can't wait to see the final product.

Scott, is this the same type of Rays I got off you?

No, I've only had 3 of this type and they were all females. I've got 2 of them and ryan has one. The funny thing is no one wanted any of these when they were up for grabs.

Yours are the regular motoro x pearl.

Scott, is this the same type of Rays I got off you?

yup.... alberta born and raised

Well they are Albertas

outstanding photo,could you provide a picture of both parents so we can get an idea of what they took from each? would be interesting.

I'll post some up here

Are you saying you'll have henlies for sale soon or are they a cross with another ray?

They will be a cross but if it's what I'm hoping it will be a very cool cross. First of it's kind I believe.

Lookin good Scotty. \

Thanks Tim

You almost need a sand sump. I don't know if such a thing exist, but when the sand enters into the intakes it goes down directly into a collecting sump that can easily be switch off with valves and then removed for cleaning out periodically.

I orginally was going to put in a setteling area before my pumps but decided against it due to space requirements and I didn't really think it would be necessary. I think I can just keep my intakes near the top and the flagtail and barbs will keep the small food particles of the bottom and the rays should stir up the rest into the intakes, just got to make sure my sand is heavy enough

That is just Sick Scott, sooo Sick, The rays are sooo PHAT. Now where are the leos and hens?

The castexi is getting massive and is pretty close to giving birth. I think all the other females except one are pregnant in there also. The leos are in another tank dur to them being little pricks and biting the other rays. My male henlie is in the big tank and should be a daddy in a few months and my female henlie is still to small for the open waters.

That XINGU is phenominal.. :bow: :bow: :bow:

Ya I was kinda focusing on the xingu to see if anyone else noticed that I may have got lucky and actually got one that will turn a white with black background. There is only one I know of now that has turned out that way so I'm keeping my fingers crossed. Now I just need a male for her.

Here's the first pearl x marble my rays had produced. She is a little over a year old now and possibley pregnant. She still looks like she has alot of changing to do. I'll add some progression shots later if I can find them. Thought Ryan would find this a little more helpful on a final product for his ray.

This tank is awesome and very inspiring.

Just looking for a pleco that will work in there as I'm getting a little brown algae build up in some spots on the bottom.

May I suggest you stay away from Acanthicus adonis and Acanthicus hystrix as these huge bad boys will attack rays if they get to close to the pleco's territory. I had a 8 inch A. adonis that was constantly tearing the disk of my biggest female motoro, before I could relocate the pleco the motoro killed it. I came in one morning and found the A. adonis floating on the surface with a huge hole in it's side. I would also stay away from any Psuedacanthicus sp. as they have similar nasty and huge pectoral spikes that caused all the damage. I will be trying a Scobinancistrus sp. when they become availible.

I now have a 5 inch royal pleco, Panaque nigrolineatus with my motoros. My female motoro is about 13 inches across and she doesn't seem to bother this little pleco. Panaque is a tough genus and they take no crap, but they are also not overly aggressive and this one has not touched any of my rays. They eat lots of algae and they do an awesome job keeping wood polished.

Will

Thanks for the heads up on the plecos. I'm completely new to plecos and don't know alot about them so others experiences is very helpful. I have heard good things about royals and rays and have tried a couple panaques but chose wrong and they only ate the shrimp in the tank. I'll need something very large as my female castexi is huge and when pregnant she will pretty much eat anything unless she is very well fed.

Thanks guys. The water is actually very clear but I had just finished feeding and the front window is dirty which is the main problem. I change around 400 gallons a day of water through a drip system which consists of one 1 micron sediment filter and then 2 5 micron charcoal filters.

I've been looking at putting in some sand but am still playing around with the intakes and outputs postioning. With the rays I have they can kick the sand up pretty high so looking at different options there.

Just a short vid. I think I need to resize to make it smaller.lol

Not sure how to embed the vid so if someone could help trhat would be great

*speechless*

i think about 1000 neon tetras or cardinal tetras would look awesome.

now do you clean or do water changes in a tank that big?

I'm thinking that would have been alot cheaper route than the rays. So far I've only cleaned the acrylic once but I've been in the tank a few times. between all the fish and filtration the tank is kept pretty clean. Just looking for a pleco that will work in there as I'm getting a little brown algae build up in some spots on the bottom.

Awesome looking tank. Do you have any humidity isssues in your place with this thing?

Being that the system is a closed loop system and sealed really well a small dehumidifier keeps up no problem.

I would guess a large bird.

OMG they're so cute! If I had the room for a massive tank i'd totally be into rays! I'm so jealous! It's awesome that you're so dedicated! Great job!

Thanks, I'm hoping I'll have some luck with breeding a smaller ray speicies (Thanks marek) called scobina which can live in much smallet tanks.

Congrats on the new additions!

Allways fun to see how the pups will come out and look, especially since I'm not sure on the father.

Congrats on the double birth :thumbs:

Thank you, hopefully I can keep my births staggered more so there are allways a few for sale.

Congrats Scott! They look pretty amazing. Love your title "Huh didn't know she was pregnant !!"

lol were you wondering if I was posting in the right forum!! Thanks

congrats mr motoro mom! hahaha. they are so cute! so wishing i had a large enough tank to keep a couple of those beauties!

Thanks, maybe I can find away to breed a dwarf species. lol I'm sure if you had a bigger tank it would be full of other things.

yep get ready to house some more pups for awhile. And there still coming

Nice!! Good Catch, I was wondering how you knew they were born at 3am I was going to ask if it was some sense only a male mother had. What do you plan on doing with them? All 5 I'm thinking by your post. Also where do you keep them in I know you hae teh 2200, you also have a pond? I wanna see pictures of this pond. What's your setup like, what do you have other then the 2200 in your basement?

lol, male mother first time I've heard that. There are actually some signs when your ray will give birth. Usually a week to a few day before if the male is still in with her he will start to try and breed with her and then if your feeding 2 or 3 times a day which you should do when they are pregnant they won't eat usally around 8 hours before they give birth. I was just a little excited in the big pond due to thinking the pups may get eaten so I wasn't really following the signs and in the pond I didn't figure she would have been that far along ut all the signs were there when I look back.

There are actually 3 little pups and 4 pups from the other mother but I didn't include any pics of the others as they look like most my pearl x motoros. All the pups but maybe one will be for sale when they are able to eat earthworms or when I feel they are strong enough for beginners. The pups are just in a 90 gallon rubbermaid hooked to a system running a 250 gal pond, 450 gal tank, 75 gal tank and a 60 gal tank. I still hve one smaller tank empty waiting for my castexi to give birth within the next couple weeks. I also may have some really interesting pups coming in a few months if the females complete the pregnancies as they are they're first. I also hav a 280 gallon tank with some scobinas, some ray growouts, mbu, frt, and some tats. All my other basement setup are pretty ghetto and will be gone hopefully within the next year as I downsize a bit. I'll try a get some update pics of all when I get some time.

Loving those lil pups!

Me too, why is it when the smaller something is the cuter it is?

That is...amazing...

And that was the least boring rant I've ever heard.

Thanks and I'm glad I didn't put you to sleep.

Just had a few more stingray pups the other night. The first set was by one of my motoros in my pond which I had no idea was even pregnant. I knew someone in the pond was by the amount of food being consumed but I thought it was my other ray. The really neat thing was the size of the pups. They are half the size of any of my other pups I've had. As you can see in the pics there is a quarter for size reference and a shot of one of them with another pup born the same night from a different mother that is the normal birth size. Not sure an the species as she was kept with a few different males since I've been moving rays around. The pups are a darker base color than any of my other pups have been but that might be do to size, I'll have to keep an eye on them to see how they turn out.

I also had 4 other pups that night from a different mom in the 2200 gal tank, so at about 3 am on came the lights and in for a swim to retrive the pups. For the last week or so I've been taking soapless showers and checking in the middle of the night to see if they had arrived not knowing how they would fair with all the big rays and fish, but to my surprise I missed one that night and it was in perfect shape the next afternoon swimming around with everyone else.

Some pics because to follow a boring rant.

I've had the same issues with an old tank I had. I tried all the above thinking at least hydrochloric acid would work and nope it didn't. The only thing that I found worked was an industrial hand cleaner with pumice in it and alot of elbow grease.

Wow they look like they are turning out nicely. It's amazing how much the marble x pearls will change in color when on different substrates, yours also has more pattern than mine. And as always very nice shots!!

Looking to pick up these products with the the novus 1 being in a bulk bottle.

Wow.

Just wow.

The hobby has advanced so much, this is just amazing. I would never even have THOUGHT of doing something like this. So impressive. /applaud

Dan

Thanks there seem to be alot of people going this way with larger tanks.

Professionally built stand,tank and filtration I would guess around 10,000. If your handy and build one you could have a 2200 gallon for same price.

Nice job on the mechanical and filtration. Very neat work. If the companies I work for saw what mine looks like I'd be outta work. My new set-up will be much neater. Thanks for raising the bar.

I can't wait to see it aquascaped. Its so big it looks bare even with all the monsters you have in it.

lol, it's still not as neat as it should be but a guy gets a little impatient and does a few shortcuts, the rest of my you house can still tell I'm an electrician because all the electrical is half finished.

Thanks again for the huge piece of driftwood I went for a swim last night with the rays and started to do a little aquascaping but really needed someone on the outside to tell me how it looked, so it's not exactly what I wanted yet. Spent almost an hour in there moving stuff around and playing with the rays, quite a cool experience. Also put in the air stones but need to find some suction cups to hold them in place.

I definitely owe you a couple favours now.

you should pick up some these weighted air stones:

http://www.igopro-on...one-p/aqs-1.htm

Asian Air Stone - 4.3cm x 1.5cm

Availability:: Usually Ships in 1 to 2 Business Days

Description Aquarium Air Diffuser

Self-weighted to stay on the bottom of your aquarium

Each color level can be adjusted to change the size of the bubbles released

Expandable by combing two or more 4 piece units together.

Not easily broken

Quantity Discount: Buy 7 or more @ $1.50 each. Your shopping cart will reflect the adjusted price after entering the appropriate quantities.

The air diffusers I have stay on the bottom no problem it's just the rays like to move them all over the tank. I'll have to take some pics pf them so I can get some feedback from everyone on here on what to do.

Nice aro and great looking pics.

Nice looking setup and stock. How long have you had this stock together? I was thinking maybe some bichers with my smaller rays. The patterning on your rays is coming along nicely, what size are they?