HOW TO KEEP RAY BILL CHEAP

Yeah I imagine those bills are prettty high. I have only 3 lil laticeps and they eat 50 bucks worth of food a week. And just like you I feel like they would eat more if i let them. I cant imagine the bill on 8 rays even if the largest is 18 inches. Maybe they will eat trout fillets? Worth a try. I have a giant salmon in my freezer from BC and i jusy "saw" off lil chunks to help withj the bills. I also try and fill them up on nls wafers a lil first haha

Are you able to get them on to pellets as you can mix up a lot of different pellets to bulk them out, this is a good mix of diet as often they are very balanced with all the added vitamins. Fresh fish is no doubt brilliant but obviously very expensive, I try a mix of everything.

I am currently mixing sturgeon pellets in with my massivore and carnivore pellets along with hikari cichlid gold, i don't add much of the sturgeon pellet but it was recommended to me by a ray keeper and I have posted up the ingredients before and nobody seemed to have an issue.

On the water front you could reduce the drip down to a value that records just a low level of nitrate, I run an average of 20ppm nitrate tested weekly, this way I only drip 30 gallons per day and that costs me about £1.50 per month on a water meter. I turn mine on for 1 hour per day but you do need a "fancy solenoid" (joke) to control that on a timer, mine cost about £150 for a very high quality normally closed one, my aquatronica controls it but you can used a plug timer. It is literally an on /off electric tap.

I bet they would get used to eating trout but it might be messy and it could take an age to fillet it.

How about making a worm farm, I cannot believe how fast they grow and breed, plus they eat a lot of your old veggie waste.

Pellets are only an add in, I agree that a whole fish must have everything in there but the manufacturers go to great lengths to make them as good as they can.

You would be amazed at how much the worms reproduce in the right environment, I regularly opened a tub no more than 6inches x4x4 and there were literally hundreds of baby worms in there and the a few weeks later they were up to feeding size.

I do put newspaper in with mine and a few days later there is not a lot left, I also put in scraps of veg and some fruit. I think bran should be used too. I am toying with making a proper farm as the tubs do tend to make the soil wet. They need good drainage but I think the run off fluid is good for plants.

This is a good thread for new ray keepers as they often do not appreciate quite what food monsters they can be.

DIY- Do It Yourself foods might help.
There are a few posts on here about different ways to do DIY foods.
Also, see if your rays will eat Talipa. You can get large bags of frozen Talipa at walmart for around 12 bucks.
That will help from just buying shrimp and smelt all the time..

You can do it in many ways, but the total ammoung during a year would be exactley the same. And would cost the same. I dont think there is a cheap way to go, if you dont give the waste stuff that noone will have and eat themselfes

Toby, I do exactly that mix.
I have a tub and mix the following hikari:
40% sturgeon, 20% carnivore, 20%Massivore and 20% ccichlid gold
I find a kilo of king prawn is £10 but lasts only a week. A kilo of hikari is £50 odd, Which last
Much longer.
In a week I feed the pellet mix and 5 days with prawn.