spikes on female motoro's disc

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fastcarsnbigfishies

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Oct 13, 2008
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New Mexico
Hi everyone.
So my female ray (about 11")has developed spikes on mostly the rear end of her disc the past few months now which I know is normal. But over night the spikes went from being brown/gray (looked like they were covered/part of her disc) to being white (like when a barb is shed and shortly after turns white). I am trying to figure out what the cause of this is.
The past few weeks the male motoro (about 10")that is in the tank with her has been nibbling at her disc, once on a weekend when i was out of town so I just figured he had gotten hungry and he took a decent little chunk ( 1/2 penny size) out of her disc. I have been keeping an eye on him and he isn't chasing her around during the day, but maybe at night because i have noticed a few more small bites that just leave kind of a scratch on her disc. I am wondering if he has been biting the spikes, causing them to turn white, or if them turning white is something the female does to make them more spikey/pointy so that when the male bites at her it is somewhat painful to him to disscurrage biting/breeding if she isn't ready yet.

Has anyone had something like this happened to their ray or noticed changes in spikes near breeding time? I found these threads:
This one sort-of explains what they are
http://www.monsterfishkeepers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=76537&highlight=denticle&page=2
And this thread looks a lot like what my females spikes look like, my only surpise is that they went from being covered by the rays skin, to being white over night
http://www.monsterfishkeepers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=202663&highlight=spikes

Ill try to get some pictures of her's but she is always moving.

BTW she isn't running or scared of the male, infact she is usually nearby/ontop of him, so I don't think it is of much concern yet.
 
lol quick update. I spoke too soon, i just saw the male swimming around with her nipping at her disc trying to flip her over. Gah she is just at that age where I don't know if she is ready or not. This is hectic, I don't want to separate them if it is "supposed" to happen, but I don't want to keep them together if she isn't ready. When he stopped she still swam right over to him, so she isn't terrified of him. But I don't want him to really beat her up over night. What to do what to do :nilly:
 
The spikes (denticles) are covered with a very thin membrane (skin) that is easily rubbed off. She most likely rubbed it off while thwarting the males meager attempts to please her.

I have noticed that my largest female is capable of using the denticles on the right side of her tail to effectively catch the spiracles of my smaller male and fling him off her. He usually ends up with a little bald spot at the rear of his spiracles. No harm done though. - FM
 
interesting, thanks for the input. It did become quite obvious shortly after I posted that they had turned "white" because they lost their covering when the male was nipping on her. The mating behavior came on so quickly it was as if by the time i posted the rays had answered my questions just hours later on their own haha.
 
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