Questions on housing for breeding rays

[ray777]

I am curious if anyone thinks this is a good idea. First let me say I would rather do this for money reason and time reason instead of buying tanks, or building a plywood tank or building a plywood pond.

I am thinking of getting preformed basin ponds in the size of 51inchlong x32inch widthx18inch tall. I was going to house a pair or one female in each one. When its time to breed throw the male in there and when he is done take him back out. I will have them all plumbed to 2 central wet dry systems. Any comments please bring them good and bad.

 

[keepinfish]

hmm, i have found that if i move my male around it takes him longer to get my female pregnant. For instance after birth he gets her within seconds, but when i moved him back with her after birth, it took him nearly a month before he got her.

So i guess it could work just may take longer for him to be comfortable to breed her.

The plus side is the female can give birth without the fear of the male hurting the pups.

 

[Just Toby]

I imagine you would need to have some form of perspex cover to reduce evaporation and just in case a "fruity" male caused a harrassed female to try and jump out.

I would have thought that sitting them in insulation would be a good idea to keep the heat loss dowin in winter.

UV would be needed to cut down on cross contamination and then a good way of water changing the whole central system. (also heating in sump)

 

[ray777]

hmm, i have found that if i move my male around it takes him longer to get my female pregnant. For instance after birth he gets her within seconds, but when i moved him back with her after birth, it took him nearly a month before he got her.

So i guess it could work just may take longer for him to be comfortable to breed her.

The plus side is the female can give birth without the fear of the male hurting the pups.

Interesting anyone else have a male like this. Thanks for the info!!

I imagine you would need to have some form of perspex cover to reduce evaporation and just in case a "fruity" male caused a harrassed female to try and jump out.

I would have thought that sitting them in insulation would be a good idea to keep the heat loss dowin in winter.

UV would be needed to cut down on cross contamination and then a good way of water changing the whole central system. (also heating in sump)

Yes I plan on cover for evaporation mainly but cut heat also a good idea.

 

[Just Toby]

I guess it would also be good to have some way of making it easy to separate the male and female within the "mating tank" so that you could easily catch out the male and keep him under control for prolonged exposure (i,e egg crate divide)?

 

[mrbondatut]

ive heard many people say that their males mated right after the female gave birth. if you're breeding for profit i would say keep the male in but i have no experience myself.

 

[CrAzYNeSs]

Continuous breeding like the aforementioned is very stressful to the female.

 

[vamptrev]

i would try to go a little wider then 32"

other then that, sounds great!

 

[ray777]

problem is I can't fit anything really wider down my stairs. I really haven't seen any other ones then laguana ponds basin. I want the big one they have but it won't fit down stairs. Any other pond sites? I could fit a 70-80"x30-36"x18-24" down my stairs problem is finding one.

 

[Just Toby]

Have a look in to the panels that you can use for making loft tanks for large buildings such as hotels.

I build a rainwater recovery tank out of them and you can build any size you like.

My next door neighbour used to instal them in hotels for water, they are sectional and bolt together with stainless bolts.