The reason for Leaving salt water
 

That is not entirely true I have 4 salt tanks still, they are just small.

Go
 

Are those freshwater rays?
________
Pot

what do they do?

How about a compromise? Keep a saltwater ray??? :p

lol, he had a SW blue spotted ray that he had to sell to get these 2.

I think he is in a ray paradise these days. If only I had the room...

What makes these any more interesting than a Salt Water tank or even a Saltwater Ray?

It's the rarity. Leopoldi's are banned from export and will probably go extinct soon since their natural habitat is going to be toast (building a dam at the river site). These two are a possible breeding pair.

Where is their natural habitat?

Well, I wish you the best of luck Rudy!!! Captive breeding is most certainly the future of this hobby!

Some South American river. The same one that L046 (Zebra Pleco) comes from.

Those look like Motoro Sting rays. Either way, beautifull creatures. I had one but it died due to an infection from a feeder gold fish. If you can avoid it dont feed them feeders, Unless they are dead and have been completly frozen.

I would love to get one again.

How many gallons do you need to keep a Motoro?

They're Leopoldi's, quite a ways rarer than motoro's. They also don't get as big as motoro's (which hit retarded sizes of 26" + I hear).

Motoros can literally as big as man hole covers. There was one at big als at one point that was 2 feet disc for sure.


Leos are quite a bit different than Motoros as they come from Peru. Leos and henlei come from brazil and are way more personable I find.

Very True, Mine was 8" round, really a baby. It had great markings, very bright coloring.

The Xingu River basin, Xingu and Fesco rivers mostly.

There are people who have had some success with propagating Leopoldi in captivity, hopefully Tim can add himself to that list.

Hey Aaron,

What other rays are part of the export ban?

I think Pearls, Leos, Hystrix, Henlei. Not banned yet but highly controlled. Most hystrix coming in are Scobima

I've seen and heard various things about a full export ban but have never seen a reference. This article for example says that leopoldi and henlei exports are not permitted:

http://www.ofish.org/data-area.asp?aid=11419&gid=4838

Problem is that it's from October 2003 and I know people have legally imported them since. There are also many documents describing quota systems like this (2003):

http://www.cites.org/common/com/ac/20/E20-inf-08.pdf

I did seach a while ago on IBAMA (the Brazillian Evironmental Agency) and found this:

http://www.ibama.gov.br/rec_pesqueir...%22leopoldi%22

Which talks about a quota system again and is dated 2005. I put it through google's translate thing and it seems to describe a quota system that was in effect until the end of 2005, the end of which coincides with all these rumors of an export ban.

So the answer is: I have no idea and from what I can tell almost nobody else does either, the detail in Rudy's post is my understanding as well. As usual Christian probably knows something nobody else does.

One thing that often gets missed in this dicussion is the difficulty identifying these rays. There is some question about the P13,P14 and P62 variants being other species rather than just colour variants of leopoldi. One thing that I read some time ago talks about P14 having shorter tails which is something I saw when I compared the one you guys had at Golds to the 2 Wayne has in his display. Hard to tell from Rudy's photos but I think maybe his could be P14 but they don't seem to have the brilliant white Wayne's do so that may be wrong.

If you look at this page you can see what I mean, there's no brown on the edges of the spots.

http://www.potamotrygon.de/fremdes/MarcoD/0403.htm

I know what you mean. I can tell you when I walked in to the sellers hows I said those are Henlei. Then he told me the background of them and how they were acquired and turned on the lights and then pointed back to Leopoldi. Then you look at my old Leo as pictured here

http://www.cichlidgallery.com/under-...n/100_0051_IMG

The spots on these rays are much whiter than my Henlei Pair, however they do have spotting around the outside of the disc which could point to Henlei. The underside is also not spotted which would point to Leo

There is a theory that Henlei and Leos either hybridize in the wild or are the same species collected from different parts. There is little known about rays period.

Either way I am extremely happy to have them and they were worth every penny

Just curious. what are you feeding them? I am interested in getting another but dont want to make the same mistakes as the last one.

I have never fed my rays live at all. Only a few a wild caught ones that I had to ween, I fed earthworms. My rays eat shrimp and pellets.

Rudy:

How fast do motoros grow? What would a minumum gallon tank for a 4-5 inch disc? How long before upgrading?

Just wondering. Really can't afford it right now and no space in our tiny apt. anyways.

THANKS!

Js

For any rays I would go 6 foot tank at least. Rays in 4 foot tanks look cramped to me regardless of how big they are For a few years you could get away with a 108 or so. Motoros grow reasonably fast until they hit 10 inches or so and then slow down considerably. Tank just has to be wider than the disc and the tail