Would This Work Out Okay?

[fish-r-fancy]

Hi I still have some more questions that I want to be answered before I make such a big commitment and buying a teacup sting ray, a black ghost knife fish and a kind of eel. Tommorow is the day that I will go and buy the tank. I will be cycling the tank using feeder minnows that can be eaten once the cycling process is over. Here are the questions that I still have:

-How many minnows should be used to cycle the tank?

-Do these fish prefer a sand substrate or a gravel substrate? (I have heard differing info, some sites saying that sand can get stuck in stingrays eyes!

-If they prefer sand, can I use pool filter sand?

-Will lace rock bother any of these fish? I have some that I would like to use.

-Will airstones and bubble curtains bother any of these fish?

-For filtration I think I will use a fluval canister filter and a aquaclear 70, is this okay?

-For food I plan on buying a container of live blood worms each week, some feeder minnows each month, and some of those tubivex worm cubes. I was thinking of feeding live bloodworms daily, tubivex work cubes weekly and feeder fish monthly. How many blood worms should I feed each day, how many tubivex worms weekly and how many feeder minnows should I buy monthly?

Sorry, about all of the questions. Thank you so much.

 

[cane76]

what size tank are you getting 6x2x2?
forget about the term teacup ray it only confuses things stick to scientific names.
most raykeepers use sand but a fine smooth gravel is just as good,i have never heard of rays having problems with sand in their eyes before.
if you are adding rocks make sure they have no sharp edges and beware rays are strong and smaller rocks/stones will be played with.i had small rocks in with my ray but she kept hitting them against the glass.
airstones and bubble curtains will also be played with and dug up.rays are curious fish and everything in the tank will be messed around with i gave up on plants and airstones they just end up floating on the top every morning.even internal filters will be pushed and pulled off the glass.
as for filtration you want to be turning the whole tank over 4-5 times an hour and i wouldnt bother with feeder fish at all it is a possible way to spread disease and rays once trained are quite happy on frozen foods with the occasional river shrimp treat
hope this helps

 

[fish-r-fancy]

Thank you very much that reply was really helpful. I will be getting a tank that is 6x2x2 tonight from my friend that kept a snake in it. Hopefully I will be setting it up and cycling it by this weekend. It depends how long it takes me to get some good filters. Will pool filter sand be suitable? To hold down the airstones I think I will put down some lace rock. How do I make a heater guard is there any DIY thread on this, I've never seen one for sale. As for the feeder fish I buy them off a breeder each month, he lets us pick out the ones that we want and sells them at a discount. Can I feed the shrimp that are sold at the supermarket? I still don't know much about how much I should feed these fish, so if anybody could fill me in that would be great. Thanks so much everybody.

 

[cane76]

im not sure about the pool filter sand wait for other replies on that one.
but if i were you i would get a thermofilter so the heater is not even in the tank its one less thing for the ray to mess around with that way.over here heater gaurds are for sale in almost all good lfs.
to give you a idea of how much growing rays eat i am feeding my 7" male motoro 4 times a day.before i got him on prawns and fish he was going through a kilo of bloodworms every two weeks plus as many earthworms and river shrimp i can find.you really cant overfeed small rays they would be quite happy to eat all day long they are very active so are constantly burning energy so therefor allways hungry.
by supermarket shrimp do you mean frozen prawns?if thats what you mean they are fine
even though the feeders you will be getting are all healthy i still dont see the point if the ray will be just as happy on a good varied diet of fresh and frozen dead food but this is up to you

 

[fish-r-fancy]

Thanks for the reply. I've never seen thermofilter's or heater guards for sale at any of my lfs's, so I will just make a heater guard. Will 3 feeding per day be good, 1 at like 8:00 in the morning, 1 at 4:30 in the afternoon and then the last feeding at like 7:00 at night? What I'm not sure about is exactly how many bloodworms I should be feeding at each feeding. Yes, by supermarket shrimp, I did mean frozen pawns. I think I iwll go with maybe like 10-20 feeder fish a month. Thank you

 

[fish-r-fancy]

Ok I went to the lfs the other day and got the tank. While I was there I took a look at the fish. I saw 2 more fish that I wanted a ropefish and an alligator gar. WIll these fish be okay?

 

[cane76]

i would say no to both alligator gar grow to 8-10 feet long in the wild and will easily reach 6ft in aquaria,i had one for a few months and they grow at a shocking rate,it will be as long as your tank is wide in roughly a year and will attack and eat everything it possibly can.and i think ropefish will be eaten like spaggheti if you are still getting a ray.

 

[cane76]

Thanks for the reply. I've never seen thermofilter's or heater guards for sale at any of my lfs's, so I will just make a heater guard. Will 3 feeding per day be good, 1 at like 8:00 in the morning, 1 at 4:30 in the afternoon and then the last feeding at like 7:00 at night? What I'm not sure about is exactly how many bloodworms I should be feeding at each feeding. Yes, by supermarket shrimp, I did mean frozen pawns. I think I iwll go with maybe like 10-20 feeder fish a month. Thank you

its hard to say how many bloodworm to offer in each sitting,just keep feeding till it seems to lose a bit of interest and then stop.then do the same thing again 3-4 hours later.i was giving my little ray 6 cubes of bloodworm every 3-4 hours that works out at a pack a day it was costing so much i started buying it by the kilo.obviously we cannot be there all day to feed our fish every 3 hours so just feed them as much as you can as often as you can.with my first ray i was so paranoid about under feeding i probably went way over the top

 

[fish-r-fancy]

Ok thank you. I would definetly not be able to keep a 6 foot fish and I don't want a fish that is going to get eaten. Are there any eels or eel like fish that I could keep in a tank this size along with the fish that I already want? Thank you again

 

[cane76]

a fire eel or tyre track would be fine

 

[fish-r-fancy]

I really like fire eels but I have never seen them for sale at my lfs. I'll hae to kepp my eyes out for one.

 

[fish-r-fancy]

Okay this is what I'm thinking so far:

-Filtration:3 Marineland Emperor Bio-wheel filters that filter a combined 1,200 gallons of water
-Heating:2 all glass submersible aquarium heater 300 watts-for the heater guard I will put the heater inside a PVC pipe and at at the 2 ends of the PVC pipe I will glue a piece of a screen blocking any fish from entering and allowing good water flow-The PVC pipe will be decorated with fake leaves on a strand and pebbles
-Substrate: I have been reading baout how some people don't like the way sand can stick to a ray so I will be using a very small, smooth gravel that is a natural color
-airstones/bubble curtains: I will have bubble curtains going along the whole back of the aquarium
-Powerhead: I will pick up a cheap powerhead

let me know what you think of this. Thanks

 

[fish-r-fancy]

Hi last night I went back to the lfs to look at some filters. The guy that helped us highly recommends 1 canister filter over 2 H.O.B's so, we will be going with a canister filter. This way the tank wont have to stick out into the room the extra 4-5 inches because of the H.O.B's. We also had a look at the freshwater stingrays. They only had 1 left and it was a Potamotrygon Reticulata. The stingray was about 4 inches and had nice colors. It was a dark brown and it had light brown markings on it that kind of looked like flowers. The man who helped us at the lfs also highly reccommended sand over gravel because he said sand is much easier for the rays to dig in, so I think I will be going back to pool filter sand.

 

[cane76]

any updates?is the tank set up yet?are you able to get some cycled media to jump start your new filter?

 

[fish-r-fancy]

any updates?is the tank set up yet?are you able to get some cycled media to jump start your new filter?

No, the tank isn't set up because the lfs is a family business and they went on vacation for the holidays and closed the shop down until after the holidays. I'm going to buy the filters there because they have the cheapest prices so it looks like I'll have to wait a bit.