my living room is getting flooded!

[sam buckle]

three days into starving my rays in an attempt to getting them to take pellets, and oh my god are they getting p*&£"d off! they are none stop tank slapping and even managed to get my girlfriend soaked while she was watching tv! not that she could hear it over the splashing sounds.
this is the first time i have tried to get rays onto pellets. they all already eat them when hidden in prawns.
(four rays by the way . 16" male flower, 14" and 10" female motoros and a 10" male motoro)

now onto the question,(nic or t1karmaan feel free to impart your wisdom on this)

when you starved your rays to take pellets did you have other fish in the tank?
If you did have other fish in there did the rays start showing extra interest in them?
as mine are starting to chase 6" to 8 " red hooks) and the flower even pounced on my 9" datnoid.

any thoughts?

thanks
sam

 

[FishDog]

Just think of it as if you starved yourself for 4 days. Most of us would be in the field with a spear trying to kill the neighbors cows. Same with the rays. They hunt fish in the wild and when they are hungry, their natural instinct is to kill and eat.

 

[Duckman77]

My large motoro ate massivore right away. She is in with a smaller male. Like you, I could get him to eat massivore when hidden in shrimp but he was reluctant to eat the pellets plain.

The trick that worked with him was to soak the massivore pellets in warm to hot water (works faster than cold water) for about 5 minutes or until the pellets became soft and the size of a penny to nickel in diameter. When presented in this way, the male would eat the pellets. After supplementing his diet with the presoaked pellets for a period of time, he eventually started eating the unsoaked pellets as well.

 

[skylineiz]

you could try soaking pellets in water that has worms in it.
and as for the living room problem,... should get a lid!!

and a thing to note is, when you see them starting to nibble on the pellet, your set! Its just a matter of time before they start taking the whole thing then.

 

[omojena]

my large female motoro ate the pellets first and then the rest learned. my male flower took about 2 weeks of starving/lean dieting to learn how to eat the pellets. try hikari sinking carnivore pellets. they are smaller than massivore and easier to swallow. my rays all prefer the sinking carnivore to the massivore. also.. take the rays favorite food... run it through a blender and use that to soak some pellets in before presenting them to the rays. good luck