African_Fever

Good to know. I had just assumed that the fish could be forwarded on to any airport in Canada as long as there was a customs office, and didn't realize that it had to be done where they first entered the country.

What I don't understand is why there's only the three ports of entry from Asia, and why the fish can't be just sent along to another airport as long as it's international and has a customs office? Fish from anywhere else in the world can be sent this way, so why not from Asia?

Petricola's and other Syno's IME have been way more sensitive to water changes than any of the my other fish (rays included). They're always the first ones to be 'itching' and twitching if I put too much fresh water in and not enough neutralizer.

Thanks Dustin. The sand is just one of the finest grades of frac sand. It's pretty light in weight so the rays are able to throw it around pretty good, but I like that because it means that it's getting stirred up all the time and there's no dead spots.

It's always cool to feed your fish veggies and watch them devour them. I feed my schoal of silver dollars all sorts of veggies, and it's crazy how fast they'll eat just about anything green.

Great looking acei too!

Tiny; not even starting to develop by any means. It really puts how large flowers need to be to breed in perspective when my motoro's bred at a smaller disc size than these guys are now; though flowers are a 'leaner' ray than motoro's. I wouldn't be surprised if a 12" motoro could weigh twice what a 12" flower would.

Attached are a few pic's of my flower rays. I managed get a new pair recently, and they're starting to settle in nicely; even eating chopped shrimp already!

The new pair.

New male, about 7" disc.

New female, about 9" disc.

Existing female, about 13" disc.

Existing male, about 12" disc.

Thanks for the great paper Birger!

That male is awesome! Hopefully he gets to know the ladies soon...

I agree on footprint; with a footprint that size, that tank has the footprint many 300 gallon tanks have (and then some). With a big enough sump, I think it would be a great setup for rays and Asian aro's.

Great looking setup. You're not worried about the quality of the glass coming from Aquagiant? There's got to be a reason if the glass is that much cheaper than from anywhere else. Good luck getting it into the house too; 1/2" of clearance on each side might not be enough if there's any imperfections in the finishing of the stairwell.

It'll be a great home for your rays once it's completed either way.

What kind of rays do you have, and how large are they? Your rays should be able to mix up your sand enough unless you have an overly deep sandbed.

A PVC pipe with holes drilled is what I used, and then I placed my Eheim spraybar alongside the heater in the pipe to ensure that there would be adequate circulation. It was a pain to drill so many holes and then sand down the rough edges afterwards, but much better than risking my rays!

I'd get a heater cover for that ASAP for the rays. It's not that they haven't burnt themselves yet, it's just a matter of time before one goes up the side under the heater. With the heater stuck to the glass my worry would also be the ray not getting away from the heater soon enough. It's also just a matter of time before the danio's become a snack as well.

Can anyone recommend a place to find the hinges used for glass tops, or even alternatives for them? My dad has some that have worn out (split) on his tank, and he'd like to replace them. The tank is a bowfront with the lights sitting directly on the glass tops, so sliders aren't an option.

Same female? Congrats Scott! Your male sure didn't waste any time.

A little something to help offset your huge monthly feeding bill. Now lets see some pups from some of the other rays that you've got going!

Congrats! That's great! Are you going to keep the pup with the adults or move to a tank of its own?

Good looking Peruvian motoro's. They'll be a great first fish for your new tank!

Great score on the live food; I always forget how early the fairy shrimp and others are found in ponds, and even the ditches along the side of the roads (at least around the Hat).

Did you find out what kind of food she was on previously? If the food changed, I'd go back to whatever she was on before because that kind of change over a month and a half could easily be attributed to food.

What type of pump are you using, and what made you go down a size in return size?

I just picked up a mag 12 for a sump of mine, and the pump says to use 1.25" ID tubing for both lines for maximum flow, even though the pump itself only has 3/4".

The fish would probably be fine with the crab most of the time, but when it sheds they might rip it to pieces if it doesn't have suitable hiding spots, caves etc. The pleco might end up food for the crab.

The website you mentioned has them listed as possible stock, but not in stock at this time. When I was working for Stuart Grant we shipped some crabs out, but not all that many. To the best of my knowledge there's not many people who've kept them for extended periods of time, and they do need some land to crawl out onto every once in a while as well, so aren't really suited to most aquarium setups because of this. A cool tankmate, but not really practical.

I highly doubt you'll find them in any Calgary store ever; they're a specialty item, and I don't even remember shipping any of them to Old World (the main supplier of wild caught Africans to Calgary pet stores). They were something that the smaller specialty importers (like the old CRLCA) used to like due to their uniqueness.

I'm not really sure what's so different about your idea? A hole drilled in the side of the tank at the level that you want your water? That's a pretty common method of drilling a glass tank when you don't know if the bottom is tempered or not - if you drill a hole on the side you can then have a 90 elbow IN the tank as well, with the top of the elbow used to control the height of the water rather than the placement of the hole on the side.

Ouch; if the one on the left was sold as a compressiceps, I'd avoid that store in the future. I'm not good with my SA/CA cichlids, but it looks like a flowerhorn of some variant to me. The right cichlid is a Pseudotropheus sp. kingsizei - they can be little terrors, but not always.

I picked up a Mag 12 the other day and am planning to use it for the sump on my 200 gallon ray tank. Due to the current setup and stand, the sump is actually above the tank. I'm wondering if it's possible to have the pump sitting beside the tank (sitting on the same stand), rather than inside the tank. If I were to use PVC it would basically be like having a U tube to the pump, and then pumped up to the sump sitting above the tank. Breaking syphon shouldn't be an issue once it's started because the setup will be sealed. Does anyone see any problems with this, other than not having it fully sealed and worrying about leaks?

My other question concerns the pipe diameter - the pump has 3/4" inlets/outlets, and yet says that for maximum flow to use a 1.5" inner diameter tubing/pipe. Has anyone found a major difference using different sizes other than what's recommended? I was thinking of using either 1" PVC just because I've been using that for my FX5.