How do they do it?
- Thread starter Kwazy
- Start date
Kwazy;3545256; said:
i don't worry about an intentional attack by a ray. i worry about the accidental hit from the barb. what if i'm cleaning the tank and he's suddenly startled? he turns and scurries away. his tail swings past my waiting hand and i'm hit with that barb.
phillydog1958;3545368; said:
Yeah. I agree with both of you.
If your not comfortable, there's no reason to get one. you'll just be stressed about getting stung the whole time.
I just hand fed my female a worm. The worm had crawled up into my hand so she couldn't reach it. She completely covered my hand for about 30 seconds until I opened my hand and gave it to her. Fun stuff.
Do people just use really sharp scissors? What do you do to prevent infection? Do you put Vaseline or neosporin or something on it?
Most places pull the animals out of the exhibit and into a smaller container. From that point I prefer to knock them down using MS-222 or something similar. Once the ray is under, it's easier to trim the barb. Some rays are calm enough you don't have to put them down. A good place will check barbs once a week, and usually trim every 3 weeks or so to stay ahead of the growth. I've seen some places do terrible jobs keeping tabs on that.
There are rumors floating around about barb removal. None of them that I know of are true. I have yet to see a ray live long term after having the barb cut out of it's tail in a surgical procedure.
Trimming is the best way to do it if you HAVE to. I'm not a fan of it generally (unless we're talking public interaction areas at zoos/aquariums). It's like taking the teeth out of a tiger... if you can't care for the animal the way it is, why have it?
There are rumors floating around about barb removal. None of them that I know of are true. I have yet to see a ray live long term after having the barb cut out of it's tail in a surgical procedure.
Trimming is the best way to do it if you HAVE to. I'm not a fan of it generally (unless we're talking public interaction areas at zoos/aquariums). It's like taking the teeth out of a tiger... if you can't care for the animal the way it is, why have it?
Zoodiver;3546110; said:
I got a Potamotrygon leopoldi in that, sadly, had been the victim of a severe bite to his tail. When I opened up the bag, his tail was still a little ragged.
With some clean water, a steady diet and some nice R&R he healed over in a matter of days. He is completely without a barb, and it is a really sad thing to see. He is such a beautiful animal, and then I see the end of his tail and it just kills me. After he healed up and got to a healthy size, I introduced him into one of my larger tanks. Unfortunately he was assaulted by my largest male (because of what I am guessing was misplaced sexual interest) and his tail wound was bitten again. This most recent time his tail has healed, he regrew a very small and awkwardly angled barb. It fell out, and in the five or so months since this last incident he has healed up wonderfully, entirely without a barb. He is now happily swimming around in our smaller 360 gallon tank, waiting to grow big enough to attempt to re-introduce to my larger male population.
I strongly recommend never intentionally putting your animals through this. Even if you believe that in principal this could be acceptable to do (similar to de-clawing cats), we just do not know enough about these animals and their physiology to ensure that your specimen will recover fully, much less survive the process. It just seems so unreasonable to take such a senseless risk with such a beautiful, and often expensive, animal.
