skynoch

I've heard that too so I guess let it happen. Thanks for the reply. For how long will the discus continue to lay eggs if I decided to move the pair.

Thanks for the help guys. I think it would be very cool to watch if it happens. This is the second time in a week they have laid eggs. The first time they ended up eating them the day after they laid them. The water is tap water and the ph sits at 8.5 and is very hard, which I know is not ideal for discus but I thought I remember reading about some people raising discus in high ph hard water. I think I'm getting close to most my rays being mature now Kyle just need one of your male flowers to put in my viagra water.

Ya I was fooled,lol. Next question is where did you get that airstone?

I'm having a lttle issue. My one ray just gave birth to 7 pups last night so I threw them in a tank that I have 3 discus in. Now when I came home tonight I noticed my discus laid eggs on the filter itake pipe. I have no experience what so ever with discus so I was just wonderig what I should do. Do I remove the eggs and the parents? Do I wait till they hatch and remove both? I can't move the rays do to it may cause to much stress for newborns, any ideas?

Don't be fooled by the pictures. When I took him out of the tank to move him to Eds house, I took a tape to him and he was 14'' He is 3 in the spring. Wow, looking at it in the pics compared to the airstone it looks smaller.

Nice looking rtg. Your motoro looks very nice. Looks like a very small ray for being that mature what size is it?

For software there is Dr. Aquarium that also shows some compatible hardware and lets you use x10 devices with it. If your good wth programming you can write scripts that will do it all.

You should post some pics of you build in the DIY section I would love to see a build that big. I never took alot of pics to make it a good diy article since the build idea was based on 2 reall good diy articles on mfk. But I will post a few progression pics whn I'm done. She's not far behind in the front to back portion of he disc but is still a little behind in the width. We need some update pics of your four. And if your ever looking to get rid of a male I'm in the market. I only have the one Henlie male which has fully rolled claspers but still needs to get the length. It's about 2.5 years old but I don't think it's mature quite yet. The other 2 are leo's from h2o which are a little over a year old but the male looks almost mature, but according to mike they usually take 2 years to mature, so I still have a little to wait before I get any nice black ray pups. I'll definetly have them posted for AA members when they come around.

Thanks guys for the comments. The new build will be roughly a 12' x 8' x 40" plywood tank with an acrylic front. The inside is done now and all that is left is the mechanical and filling it with water. The rest should be done over the holidays.

Thanks, the otorongo castexi is pushing over a 30" disc Thanks and I really should have done this awhile ago. Now I need to learn to take pics as nice as yours I'm glad too, thanks lol ya that one looks like she's ready to explode. There are 5 rays pregnant in the pics but some of the angles make it hard to tell. I'm up to 20 rays as of this weekend with a new esteralla castexi from hybrid. Not counting pups. I really don't want to let it go, in fact I'm on the market to get more Thanks for looking

Just thought I'd post up some pics of all my rays and some tankmates before they all get moved to the new build. Gave my underwater case for my camera a try on a few shots.

No real tricks to breeding most rays just give them time to mature. How old are your hystrix, if you know? Do you know how to tell if the male is mature? Some rays there are a few tricks. You may need to add another male to get the competition started, some rays may take 5+ years before they will breed, a steady enviorment will help where your not moving your female from tank to tank, males may also be affected, some rays require a massive tank/pond (2000 gal+) before they will breed, big water changes and temp fluctuations can bring on breeding and pristine water conditions for others.

For me it's just quantity. When my rays are baby's it costs more to feed then when thier subadults due to the type of foods. And when the rays get larger they consume alot more. My large castexi will eat 6-8 large shrimp a day and when rays are pregnant they consume nearly twice as much. WOW 19 adult rays!! We would all probably love to see some pics of your setups! Do you have anything posted already? I only have a few pics posted but just signed up to photobucket. I plan on doing a big posting in a short while when I move my rays into the plywood tank I'm building or if I get some extra time I will try to do it sooner. What I really need is to get some of the members on here that have the ability to get the amazing shots take them for me as I really have no skills in that deperatment yet.

Motoros aren't to hard to find. On the other hand not alot of other types are found for sale. Rudy is one of the only guys I know on the board that has a breeding pair of rays besides motoros.

Hey trevor at least one of the ones I got from you is eating shrimp allready. I've never seen they eat but there are some pieces missing in the morning and they are the only ones in the 70 gal rubbermaid stocktank

What distributors? Looks like a wide selection of expensive frozen foods, certainly not an economical option for most ray keepers. lol, says who? Ricky Biro's food has only been on the market for what, 3 yrs, and hasn't gone anywhere to speak of. Seriously, you might want to take a closer look at the ingredients before you start talking about what's "best" for a fish. If you're going to feed a mix of generic fish meal, along with wheat middlings, wheat, dehulled soybean meal, wheat flour, and distillers dried grains with solubles (an ethanol by-product), you might as well just feed a generic farm feed, or trout chow. FYI - beef heart is not a "good" source of food, for rays, or any other species of fish. Personally I wouldn't feed the 6mm TherA formula to rays either, better to stick with the 3mm Large Fish, or the H20 wafers. New Life will be rolling out a few new formulas in the near future, one being a Mega Fish formula, designed for rays & other large "monster" fish. Thanks and good to hear they will be getting a formula out for the monsters.

The top pic is of the pearl/motoros. The pic of the one closeest you can really see the pearl traits coming out in it. That one will be a stunner in 3 months and just get better as it ages.

Lots of people have fed cooked only to thier rays for years and with no ill effects they noticed. I've seen people post different studies on them and I think I just got more confused. I never have because my rays just don't like them.

I've never had a ray with fungus but I would recommend binox or nitrofurazone if you can find it. If you can't I have some you can use. For now do a 50% waterchange and add 2lbs of salt per 100gallons and bump your temp up to 84-86. Mix the salt in another cointainer with water so it dissolves completely first then slowly add it to your tank. Use non-iodized salt (eg.kosher salt). Depending how bad the fungus is use the salt and the temp bump treatment first. You probably will need to make sure your water is pristine for the next while so 25% waterchanges (after the initial 50%) for the next couple days replenishing the salt each time. There must be a reason for the fungus coming on. Do you have any tankmates that are picking on the ray? Did it injure itself on something? Was there a stinger guard on it. Do you have any pics you can post?

I'd say $400-$700 a month depending on how many pregnant rays and baby's I have. I've got 19 adults and 13 baby's/sub adults.

My small town wallmart doesn't carry the 2lb bags of raw shrimp.

congrats what sex are they?