2 year old Motoro eating bloodworms only

Sunkist · Jun 16, 2022

Hi, my mate wants to give me a 2 year old male motoro ray, who has been eating only bloodworms since pup. He said he has tried in the past to get it onto prawns, mussels, different types of fish, other worms and pellets but never had any luck. The ray is about 26cm in diameter.

Would it still be possible at this age to wean it away from bloodworms?
My plan is to starve him and introduce a marinara mix and hope that he'll start picking at it when he gets hungry.

Thanks!

jjohnwm · Jun 16, 2022

I'm not qualified to comment specifically about rays...but fish in general have an amazing ability to train their owners. Your buddy sounds like he is particularly amenable to manipulation by his fish.

How did he "try" to get the fish to eat other foods? Drop in a chunk, watch it not eat, remove the food and say "Oh, well...I tried!"

You, on the other hand, sound like you are going to put a bit of thought into the training process; does "marinara mix" mean mixing some bloodworm, and particularly bloodworm juice, with other foods to "trick" the ray? May take some patience, but I am sure you will be successful. Good luck!

Sunkist · Jun 17, 2022

jjohnwm said:
I'm not qualified to comment specifically about rays...but fish in general have an amazing ability to train their owners. Your buddy sounds like he is particularly amenable to manipulation by his fish.

How did he "try" to get the fish to eat other foods? Drop in a chunk, watch it not eat, remove the food and say "Oh, well...I tried!"

You, on the other hand, sound like you are going to put a bit of thought into the training process; does "marinara mix" mean mixing some bloodworm, and particularly bloodworm juice, with other foods to "trick" the ray? May take some patience, but I am sure you will be successful. Good luck!

haha, yeah he probably is.

Yeah, i'm going to try and maybe cut up some prawns, blend it in with bloodworms and freeze it into cubes and see how that'll go. My mate drops in frozen cubes of worms and he goes nuts on them so i'm thinking something similar with prawns and maybe basa fillet chopped up may help. Then slowly increase the ratio of prawns and basa fillets and hopefully that'll wean him off.

jjohnwm · Jun 17, 2022

Again, I don't know how rays specifically will react to this, but maybe consider making your blend with some gelatin, creating your own gel food. The gelatin binds all the ingredients, including all those messy juices created with the blender, into a cohesive mass that allows all of it to be eaten, rather than just dispersing the liquid into your tank water and causing unnecessary pollution. It's easy to add any other foods or supplements you wish while mixing. The gel block, once set, can still be cut up into individual portions and then kept in the freezer.

Even if you don't want to go so far as DIY gel food, you could thaw the bloodworms in a glass, separate the solids from the remaining fluid...which will show you just how much of that bloodworm block is inedible pollution!...and then soak your other chosen food in that juice to pick up the familiar and attractive scent. This works especially well with freeze-dried foods, as they soak up the bloodworm water like a sponge. Apply a little strategic starvation, some creative presentation, and you should be successful.

One or both of these methods usually works with even the fussiest feeders.

In order to train a fish...you've gotta be just a little smarter than the fish...

tlindsey · Jun 17, 2022

I haven't seen any members lately here with experience with freshwater stingrays buy checkout MFK Facebook page. Hopefully someone will respond soon. I'm personally surprised that a 2 year old Motoro is just eating bloodworms.

Sunkist · Jun 17, 2022

jjohnwm said:
Again, I don't know how rays specifically will react to this, but maybe consider making your blend with some gelatin, creating your own gel food. The gelatin binds all the ingredients, including all those messy juices created with the blender, into a cohesive mass that allows all of it to be eaten, rather than just dispersing the liquid into your tank water and causing unnecessary pollution. It's easy to add any other foods or supplements you wish while mixing. The gel block, once set, can still be cut up into individual portions and then kept in the freezer.

Even if you don't want to go so far as DIY gel food, you could thaw the bloodworms in a glass, separate the solids from the remaining fluid...which will show you just how much of that bloodworm block is inedible pollution!...and then soak your other chosen food in that juice to pick up the familiar and attractive scent. This works especially well with freeze-dried foods, as they soak up the bloodworm water like a sponge. Apply a little strategic starvation, some creative presentation, and you should be successful.

One or both of these methods usually works with even the fussiest feeders.

In order to train a fish...you've gotta be just a little smarter than the fish...

Oh wow, thank you so much for recommending gelatin. Just watched some youtube videos about it and didn't know such method existed until now. Will definitely be heading out and getting myself a cheap blender to do all of this. Will give the first method a try, and if no luck, then will try the second method.

I've just picked up the ray this morning so I guess he'll need to settle in first prior to eating. After a couple of days, will test him out with blood worms first to ensure he is eating and settled in, then will try the gel method.

Thanks again for your response, gained a new learning here

Tobiassorensen · Jul 6, 2022

Soak pellets or whatever you want the ray to eat in bloodworm juice, be persistent with it and when it eats bloosworms mixed eith what you want it to eat ju increas the amount of chosen food while decreasing bloodworms slowly. Eventually you will have it eating what you want. I use this method with pups and it works out 9/10 times.