1570l (415g) Fiberglass round pool setup

[Gustavo S]

Hello everyone, I've always loved stingrays, but never had an excuse good enough to justify a tank wide enough for them, now I'm studying fishing engineering and I guess that was good enough to convince mom to let me put a 200cm(80") diameter 50cm(20") tall round pool in the backyard.

My current plan is to get a trio or quartet of Motoros, currently I've got a 20cm(8") male and a 18cm(7") female in separate quarentines, the male has been with me for a few months alredy, the female will do a month day 5 or 6, they both eat shrimp thawed in Seachem Nourish + Seachem Garlic, the male is almost eating pellets alredy, the female need more training, oh and I ordered another female alredy, have no idea which size she'll be.

Now that I've explained a bit about my situation, here's what I plan to do from now on, put them on 72 hrs bath of 5 mg/L Praziquantel before transfering them to the big pool, so far they've been eating and gaining weight well, and have not shown anormal feces, but as I'm brazilian, most of our Potamotrygons available are WC, so I think I should do it anyway, then get the new female, QT for a month, with some praziquantel at the beginning of the QT, possibly get another female and repeat the QT process.

This thread is mostly supposed to be a journal and me looking for tips and suggestions, specially regarding stocking, if you all think it'd be too much to have 1.3 Motoros in a 1570l(415g) 3,14m^2(33,8^2ft) pool, I could get henleis with some ease (they'd just be expensive), could get a bunch of hystrix when the dry season comes, they're just pretty fragile when WC or could even get some P. signata, but I'd rather stick with motoros, as I feel in love with my current pair and have one more ordered to come soon (at dry river season)... Also have a 1" dat which I'm unsure is a split bar pulcher or a fused bar microlepis (one side has 3, the other has 4 bars) that might go in this pool when it grows, if I don't sell it till then...

Sorry for the long post, should finish the pool plumbing tomorrow, then I'll send some photos of the pool, filtration, rays and the little dat

 

[headbanger_jib]

Let's see some pics

 

[Gustavo S]

Kinda late, had to get 6 posts and didn't wan't to do filler posts, but oh well, better late than never amiright ?



Here's the pool, 200cm diameter, 50cm tall, 1570 litres, finished most of the plumbing today, will try to get some details on plumbing tomorrow.






Here's my little male, he's not perfect, has three blotch patchs on the edge, from an abusive ex I was told, regardless I love the little guy, handfeeds, bites me sometimes, and splash me with water when hungry.



And here's his little girlie, hard to believe some 20 days ago I could still see her protruding hip bones, she's also handfeeding pretty well, still hasn't developed a taste for human fingers like the male though.

That should be all for now... one or two more females to come when the river's water level go down, they'll be both transferred to the pool as soon as the Prazipro tratment ends, (it starts as soon as the Prazipro arrives).



Also here's my odd Datnioids, can't tell if he's a indo or a siamese, he's only 1" right now, eating thawed shrimp alredy, he's in a friend's growout, might end up in the pool if my friend doesn't end up buying him from me.

 

[Gustavo S]

A more detailed look into how plumbing was done and how the filtration will be:



This is the drainage from the pool to the sump, the elbow facing down is supposed to pick up most of the water and ideally debris, the pipe pointing up is meant to do surface skimming ans surface agitation, the valve is there to regulate how much water is going through the elbow, as to make sure there'll be some water coming from the upper pipe.



Then there's a pipe with a T and a valve to possibly drain the pool if needed.



Water comes from the tank, into the sump and into a bucket from below (there's a bulkhead in the bucket) there'll be mechanical filtration media in the bucket, which has holes drilled in the bottom, then the water goes to the sump, in the sump there'll be DIY internal filters, a lot of ceramic media in the bucket and a pump pushing through, currently it has only one 2.700lph pump (should give me roughly 2x the pool volume hourly) but I plan on putting another one or two of these internal filters, each with a pump of it's own, later on when $$ allows me I'll be putting a 55g drum for fluidized media, currently the pumps will send water directly to the pool, but by then I'll make it so the pumps send water to the drum and from the drum to the pool.



Then there's an overflow at the sump, should start taking water when it gets to an inch of the top of the pool, just in case there's some strong rain, and there's a tap to in the sump so the water can be used to water plants or clean the floor. I'm thinking of adding a gravity fed ATO so that whenever someone waters the plants or does whatever with this water it'll be a small WC... The tap may also just be used as drainage for normal WC.


That's it right now, I'll probably change the pipe from the pump to a hose for practicity sake, and in the future, after the drum I'm thinking of adding a huge coil of corrugated hose from the top to the bottom of the sump, clinging to the walls, to try to do a nitrate reactor with a pump sending water from below and getting out from the top of the coil... but that's still something for the future.

 

[Gustavo S]

Hello everyone, it's been a while, had been busy with uni, today I finished gluing my plumbing and filled enough of the tank and sump to detect any leaking, so far (11 hours) nothing of a leak, should fill the pool up to the top tomorrow.

The female I had ordered is to arrive this weekend, my seller ordered 6 rays, so I'll get to choose, and I'll be moving my current pair to the pool in the week.

I've had a lot of trouble with getting Praziquantel in a pure form, only found dog dewormers with pyrantel pamoate and febantel, so I'm thinking of going with Levamisole and/or Fenbendazole, these I can get as pretty pure forms, Levamisole would follow RD's Treatment of 2 mg L-1 for 24 hours, then 14 days later another dose. Fenbendazole would be following The Elasmobranch Husbandry Manual I (Chapter 10, page 149) treatment of 25 mg kg body weight-1 thrice a week per three weeks. But do correct me if I'm wrong, levamisole would treat roundworms and fenbendazole flatworms, is that right ? just to be sure and not treat twice for the same worm and never for the other, as my rays are most likely WC I'd rather not miss any potential worm, specially considering how fast the female rump decreases in size after a day without eating.

Treating with fenbendazole will be a PITA but I'll do what I need to do, most likely a divider and weekly weighting, then dosing on shrimp. Levamisole I'm thinking of doing them 24hrs in their quarentine and then put them at the pool, it's a cheap medicine here, and at the small dosage used, it won't be a hassle to dose the whole pool, doing this way would just save me a huge wc after the first dosage.

 

[Gustavo S]

Also gotta figure out a way to make the pool jump proof... Maybe some screw hooks and a net over the whole tank ?

 

[Gustavo S]

Hi all, it's been a while, some new pics, the pair I had alredy is going to the pool after tomorrow. The more I look at them together the more I feel the female either isn't a motoro or is some sort of hypomelanistic stingray, she's just so cool either way. Also got a new female, this one's a bit bigger than the male, she's separated till she begins eating well, I decided to treat with just levamisole for now.



Here's the new female.



Here's the little pair.

 

[Ben10]

Very nice group of rays you have. How have they settled in to the new pool??

 

[Gustavo S]

The pair is doing pretty well in their pool, handfeeding they ate well the next day, now they're alredy handfeeding again, got a new small female that's in QT with the other one that arrived here recently, they're being a hassle to get eating, no shrimp, no live shrimp, one of them ate bloodworms, I'll look into getting earthworms this week, after they eat well it shouldn't be hard getting them on shrimp to introduce them to the pool;



This is the new female, she's small, around 6-7", but she seems to have the most ocelli of all of them, I'm looking forward to her growth.

I'll try to remember to take some pics of the pool tomorrow.

Also got a 6" hoplo catfish in a different qt to eat leftovers in the pool.

 

[Gustavo S]

As promised, the pair in the pool, I've made a lid by shaping a D in pvc and fixing the screen with zip ties, the pipe in the middle is the return line, so the water isn't collected to the filter at the same spot it comes from the filter, it's basically two Ts joined in the middle leg, one of them being rotated 90º, so the upper T connects to the pipe that gets water in and to a cap to hold the return line in place, while the lower T just distributes water to two sides, there's a tiny net on top of it all that I made to scoop out poop and uneaten food;