HOW TO KEEP RAY BILL CHEAP

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Blkpiranha - where do you buy your smelts and shrimp in bulk?

Calgary - go to T&T Supermarket. You can buy bags of smelts and shrimp there for a good price when they have them on special (not as good as Blkpiranha prices). I also buy Dew Worms (night crawlers) from the bait shop supplier 1000 for $110.00.

What ever way you look at it - keepin rays is expensive!

Good Thread - any other ray keeping saving tips out there - both time & money!
 
I just feed my tank with worms. gave them 50, didnt even see it on them, i gues they could have ate 100-150 in total. That is like 6 feedings for 110$ , pretty expencive i would say :)
 
I get my smelts locally. I just asked if they could order in cases of smelts and picked a price that was lower then T & T. They charged $32 for a case so I asked my local store if they could do $30. I know a guy that says he get cases for $26-$28. Since I don't buy cases of shrimp I just get them from T & T when I am in town. I always get raw and never cooked. Cooked shrimp are half the price but half of the nutritional value. I never feed worms except to pups as the rays can get hooked on them and want to eat nothing but worms. Smelts and shrimp are the cheapest and easiest.
 
Blkpiranha said:
I think everyone feeds their rays and fish way too much. HERE IS MY STOCK LIST!

I have 12 rays, 18" Mbu puffer,18" Armatus,two 22" black arowanas,2 adult Lenticulata pike,13" ID shark, 7" Black wolf fish,13" Arimara wolf fish, 7" Geryi piranha, 9" Black Diamond rhom,7" marbled goby,21" Tigrinus catfish,two 6" Hydrolycus tatauaia,two 5" clown loaches,5" striped raphael , two 3" spotted raphael and a 18" Aba knife fish.

My cost a month in food is probably only $65.MY STAPLE IS SMELTS! I get 11 lb boxes of smelts for $30 and 2lbs of raw shrimp for $12. Then I have some shelled seafood for my Mbu puffer. A box of smelts last at least a month and I use probably about 2 1/2 bags of shrimp. I only drop some massivore pellets once a week to the rays and feed some pellets to the clown loaches and ID shark. My rays are breeding and have had pups and all my other fish are growing. All my tanks get starved at least once a week, except the tank with the pregnant stingrays.

My tanks only get the water changed once a week with the exception of my 450 gallon with the adult rays. It gets changed about every 5 to 6 days. Depending on how much I fed them during the week.

My only real big cost is the power bill, which usually is around $400/month. Water is about $150 and my food bill is $65. So as you can see it's the utilities that kills me not the food. Just cut back on the feeding of your rays and they will be fine. The result will be a cheaper food bill,happy healthy fish and better water quality.
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trev my rays ate 6 lbs of raw shrimp in 5 days man.they are still very hungry after feeding too .where do you get the smelts from? 11lbs for $30 is awsome.i pay $7.99 for 2lbs right now.

up here no matter what fish meat it is its all around $3-5 per lbs for cheaper fish like talapia,sole,shrimp smelts ect..

their must be wholesale if i spend $30 a week $120 per month on shrimp ??? and no lie they will eat double what i am feeding them now no problems
 
Raymann88 said:
Blkpiranha - where do you buy your smelts and shrimp in bulk?

Calgary - go to T&T Supermarket. You can buy bags of smelts and shrimp there for a good price when they have them on special (not as good as Blkpiranha prices). I also buy Dew Worms (night crawlers) from the bait shop supplier 1000 for $110.00.

What ever way you look at it - keepin rays is expensive!

Good Thread - any other ray keeping saving tips out there - both time & money!
Click to expand...

shrimp are cheaper at walmart and superstore trev says he pays $12 for 2lbs at t&t i just got 2 lbs bags of raw shell on for $8.99 a bag & walmart same size is $9.00
my rays could eat 1000 worms in one meal no problems.the boesemani ate 24 worms in seconds and ate 16 shrimp right after that was when she stopped lol!

i was also mixing cooked shrimp with raw shrimp and feeding half and half. cooked are $8.00 a bag and are cleaner but all the goodness is cooked out.but i do notice their spots go alot whiter when feeding like this same with scallops but they are expensive now

and mike wait till yours get big man!!
 
Seems to fall on def ears but the home made food will last much longer then just feeding the thawed stuff the food is made out of. Better for them too as you can supplement the hell out of it and they'll still eat it. I've been using old flake food that I got from a LFS that closed. You can add pellets of any kind. Even pond pellets work.
 
The amount of food will still be the same no matter how you turn it around. I have never heard of fiber food for fish, that keeps them full longer. So it is all about the cost of the ingredients then.
 
search firemedics DIY food. My rays all went for it first time I fed. ANd my fish devour it! Way cheaper and easy to store. Especially handy if you have somebody watching your house say if you are on vacation. I currently have 8 rays ranging in size from 4 inches to 16 inches. I am lucky my fiance works for pacific seafood so I get all raw fish prodects at below store costs I get a case of shrimp for $50. I have 1600 gallons in my house with stingrays, discus, and SW fish. Mt food bill is around $60 a month! My electricity is outrageous though!
 
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