Biggest mistakes you made?

[Charliea36]

Good thread!! Great idea...let's see, I've made all kinds of mistakes. My first ray I had shipped from florida without seeing the ray first...not even pictures. It came the next day very small and weak with some kind of skin infection. Had no idea what to do having never kept rays before. Looking back I'm sure my filtration wasn't adequate, didn't know what to feed it really. Needless to say, I lost that ray. Was tough because I'd been working towards getting a ray for a couple years, even built the tank specifically to grow out pups. I also got a wild caught ray and didn't know what to do...it was super skinney and wouldn't eat. Luckily some one on here recognized the ray and put me in touch with the person who imported it and they told me what to do. Now he's a hog!

Thanks I was thinking of a way we could all talk on here and have a good time. Sucks about the first ray. I wanna see some pics of that hog lol.

 

[Charliea36]

Yup, thats about the same as mine, she's taken down fish up to 6". Maybe she just has a higher prey drive than others. her tail is nice and fat so she can'y possibly be THAT hungry...

Lol. She goes bananas every time I feed. pouncing and shredding the food. Love watching her eat.

 

[Bigfishnut]

Here's my WC male. He's come a long way.

 

[Bigfishnut]

Here's my CB female...she's a special little ray!

 

[Charliea36]

Beautiful ray. How did you end up wild catching this guy?

 

[Charliea36]

View attachment 1229636 View attachment 1229637 View attachment 1229638
Here's my CB female...she's a special little ray!

She looks identical to my marble. How big is the male

 

[Bigfishnut]

He's about 11" across. Got him from a fellow PA ray keeper. Was freshly imported by another member. Female is around 8".

 

[SHARK13]

Trying to cure ich in a ray tank. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Never again... Lost my best pup I ever produced.
I will literally pull every fish out that has parasites before that ever happens again.

 

[Charliea36]

Trying to cure ich in a ray tank. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Never again... Lost my best pup I ever produced.
I will literally pull every fish out that has parasites before that ever happens again.

Dam. That really sucks trying to save one life ended up costing another. Did you end up buying another ray?

 

[fishguy306]

I first kept rays about 10+ years ago before taking a break for school and life in general. Had a couple of motoros that would attack every fish in the tank, lost a lot of nice fish to them lol.

I'm back in it now and had my potentially worst mistake yet. I heat my system off of my water heater, pex coils in the sump. Well the temp probe came out of the water without me noticing, over the course of about 24 hours it raised the water temp up to the high 90s, highest temp I saw was 98*. Reason I noticed was because the rays weren't very active and weren't eating much. So I started doing my checks and realized how warm the water was. Found a second thermometer, dropped it in and saw what it was at.

That one scared me a lot, I thought I had killed my P14s. They were off for a few days, not eating a whole lot, but they are back to normal now, eating like pigs and terrorizing the other fish in the tank.