asian needle nose breeding?

[flamingo]

yeah, a lot of my fish took weeks of starvation before they would try eating frozen or whatever. I feel really bad about doing it but it helps me a lot and helps decrease the chance of diseases.

Nice looking needlenoses though! The first one I had was so beautiful and like around 8 inches but it got fungus from feeders and died.

[Scuba Kid]

Originally Posted by heatherhoge

LOL No they are not the feeders. They eat feeder guppies. I adopted these gold fish as a rescue from a friends who tank broke and now I am trying to find the 5 gold fish a home. We put them in this tank since there is only the needle noses in it and the water being a little warm I though would make these 5 hemerage but they are doing good. The gold do help keep the tank clean but they have to go. the needle noses wont eat frozen. Believe me I tried everything. So now they get guppies and rosey reds if store out of guppies. I also tried ghost shrimp and they wont even touch that. I also had this issue with stingrays. If they want live food they will starve them selves.

stingrays don't usually have a problem with eating if water quality, tank, and tankmates are okay. what did you offer it? what kind of stingray was it?

[heatherhoge]

I had a male and female common freshwater rays. They were in with the needle noses. We fed them the live too. I am a believer if they are ment to eat live and do so in the wild I will provide the same for them in the tank if they go for 3 days of hunger. Sometimes we can't change mother natures ways. It is a risk feeding live but they deal with that risk on a daily basis in the wild. We had a power outage while we were gone and the rays died. We lost lots of fish that day it was very tragic. Since I adopted the gold fish after the rays died I decided to hold off on rays till I get rid of the golds. I had the rays for 3 years so they were young adults. I was hoping to breed them too. I have fed them live for the whole time as well as rinsed off worms. I always put the feeders in a 10 gal tank and let them sit in there and if any look bad I got rid of them. I now raise a tank of feeders but they don't breed fast enought for the food demand in our home. lol. If you keep you eyes on the feeders or raise them your self allows you to have more control which ones the fish can and can not eat is the best way I found to give them what they want and keep it safe.

Sorry to hear about your needle nose and thanks for the complement. Even watching or choosing the feedeers is not 100% safe but like in my situation you end up looseing the fish to other things too like our power. If we want to keep them completely safe I say the tank life is the most dangerous for a fish since we try to mimic their enviornment and sometimes fail but its a risk we are willing to take to enjoy the beauty of the fish.

[Scuba Kid]

by common im guessing you mean motoro? ive heard the P. Motoros called "commons" before. either that are some more common freshwater stingrays such as the P. Reticulatas or P. Hystrix.
im sorry about your rays...

[heatherhoge]

I am not exactly sure. Our pet stores in this area are not very knowlegable.lol. they looked sorta like the one you have as your pix. I did research on the net but no good info on the "common" . I haven't found any good books on them either. The pet stores don't know anything but how to make a sell so thats worthless. That pix is that your ray?

[Scuba Kid]

no, but it looks exactly like mine. it's a P. Reticulata

[heatherhoge]

nice! Were did you find your info on the rays? Im looking for info any were. How long have you been in this hobby? Just wondering you seem to know your stuff! I have been in the hobby for 3 years. Yes my rays were one of my starter fish. Talk about starting off with the hard stuff first. I did research alot before starting the hobby but research is nothing what I have experinced. It seems to be one of those things if you don't get your feet wet you really don't know. Amazing hobby.

[Scuba Kid]

google is your friend for info. but i just happened to stumble across this site a little while back (after i had my ray for a while, but it's good info): http://www.kingsoftheaquarium.com/
they have a pretty good profile on freshwater stingrays. also, the book Freshwater Stingrays, A Complete Pet Owner's Manual by Richard Ross was really good. If you check out the profile section here at FishForums, I also made a profile.
my mom got be into the hobby when i was just a little kid. she's been keeping fish since before i was born, so ive always been into it. she bought me my first aquarium when i was about 7 or 8. ive been keeping fish ever since.
your right that rays can be difficult for a begining keeper, but since you seem to have a lot of experience now and if you're willing to, id say go for it again. that is of course if you have the proper tank (size and such).
if you want anymore info on FW stingrays, be sure to check out the profile i made on the P. Reticulata or ask as many questions as you like. ill see if i can help.

[heatherhoge]

thanks alot that helps. I will be getting back into rays hopefully to breed. Thats cool that you got to grow up into the hobby. I will have to check the sites out tomorrow I have to teach class tonight but I will let you know if any questions. You been great help.

[flamingo]

Do you treat the feeders when they are in a seperate tank?

They do eat fish in the wild but feeder fish are usually crammed into little tanks in big quantities. Like goldfish, disease spreads very quickly. I say go ahead and do it as long as you treat them in a seperate tank.
Just trying to hlep because losing my needlenose was a b@#ch. All because of the stupid little fish....

Like I said document it or just write some of the important things down!

[heatherhoge]

No I haven't treated the feeders but that is a good idea. I will start doing that. Sorry to hear about your needle nose. That website was great info. Thanks for the info on that. I will have to try to find the book.