Rays on a budget- My (somewhat long) story w/pics

  • We are currently upgrading MFK. thanks! -neo
Tomorrows shipment of 100 fry will cost about $50...but I do see your point. This is also another reason why they may be available frozen. They wouldn't exactly be 'live feeders' at that point, but they would be fresh, and still gut-loaded with Spirulina...

I need input... Tell me what you need, and how you need me to get it to you. That's what I want to be here for. I'll figure out how to make it work.

Mike
 
the frozen idea sounds good easier shipping and all but u lose the awe factor of watching ur fish nail a feeder lol ive been drawn into breeding so i guess ill be ur competition :naughty: im just kidding lol
 
szymon328;4009751; said:
the frozen idea sounds good easier shipping and all but u lose the awe factor of watching ur fish nail a feeder lol ive been drawn into breeding so i guess ill be ur competition :naughty: im just kidding lol

How about cryogenically frozen? Just put them in a pail of warm water until they come back to life...then feed to your fish.

:headbang2
 
The Blue Tilapia came from a guy on e-bay (they came out of a lake, so now they are getting Prazi and Binox while in QT.), and the white-nile Tilapia came from White Brook Tilapia. The White ones I bought fry, and they are very healthy and I'm not medicating them.

Mike
 
more pics man, lol im loving comin in every day and seeing those rays and tilapia
 
Pictures!!! ok! I LOVE pictures...

Here's the views of the day... The green cesspool of quaranitine- These guys are kinda gross. They had a bad winter in whatever lake they came from, long stringy gross looking poop, and stuff wanting to grow on them. Yuck. This should take care of it. I'll keep them in QT for an extra week I think, and maybe do some culling once I start to see who's who in there... They'll go in the toilet...I wouldn't feed these things to a wild raccoon the way they are...

The fry are amazing to watch. Very healthy.

The 2 rays eating together are the juvenile breeding pair. Male is the darker one at about 9" and the female is a little beauty queen in the making at about 8" or so. Sorry bout not turning the light on for their picture, but I didn't feel like doing it over...lol.

The Henlei mix continues to amaze me. I'm wondering if she got pregnant already, but I would't know how to tell this soon. My male spent 3 solid days chasing and tearing her up...and now seems un-interested. Is that a sign that he 'got some'?

The multi-spot(for lack of a better term) and the Leo are the most fun. They seemed to handle their move very well, and they love to play, and the little multi-spot seems to want her head rubbed all the time. Anything I do in the water, she comes and puts her head under my fingers just like a little puppy that isn't getting enough attention.

Then- The worms. Today's urgent project. I had about 200 that were already due to be sifted into new bedding, and yesterday I dumped another 1000 right in with them. So now I have to assemble my screens and mix up some bedding.... These are the warm variety of worms, so they stay in the fish room. I bought top soil at walmart just because it's inside and im lazy. I'll worry about saving $3 later on when it's warmer. I also didn't feel like dealing with trying to find ground up grains or anything, so I bought a bag of chicken scratch-feed. I'll probably have to chop it up better in the food processor, but it's food either way. The other option they had was sweet-feed for horses, but I don't know if the molasses will ferment in the soil...

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thank you, those pics are awesome, love the worms
 
I just made a huge mess with the worms, but I got them sifted into their new bed. I can only do a small amount at a time before they start getting through the screen. I was told to use 1/8 inch screen first, but all I could find was window screen, so I only used the 1/4" which is supposed to be the second step to allow the coccoons to fall through.

I don't know 'exactly' what a worm cocoon looks like, but I saw nothing in there that resembled the description, so I'm assuming they aren't breeding yet.

I have a bag of organic fertilizer for sale now, if anyone is interested...lol.

I skipped a few pics while my hands were too yucky to touch the camera...but I started with leaves, dumped in the topsoil mixture, then dumped the grains on top. I put about 2 cups of the grain mix in to start with, then I wet the surface and then mixed it up.

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cool deal man, look back in the archives of that show "Dirty Jobs" with Mike Rowe, he did a worm farm episode and they talked about the different screen and cocoons n all, i think the cocoons look alot like their terds.
 
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