Breeding Consortium - Has this been tried before?

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kimrocks

New Member
Has any group been formed in the past to invest and share the pups/off-springs?

We have a lot of experts in the forum who has bred rays repeatedly. And most likely quite a few people who would love to have top quality rays but cannot afford the full retail price.

Do you think there would be people who would be willing to get into an arrangement wherein people invest and put say $200 into a pot (as an example).

And a willing well-trusted breeder who can use the money in this pot to purchase top quality rays and breed them for the investors?

When pups are born - the breeder gets to keep the Breeding pair of rays after each investor gets 1 or 2 pups - raffle out the sequence.

Just tossing this out as an idea ? - issues and risks?
 
Cirrus

Cirrus

Arowana blogger
I think such things have happened or almost happened a few times. Monsterfishbowl in Calgary could be seen as one example of a couple serious hobbyists cooperating to form a breeding operation, David in Vancouver could have formed the nucleus for another operation. At one point I seemed to be headed in the ray breeding direction with a 600 gallon tank in my basement. I ended up getting into more ray importing, as did Mike in Vancouver (though Mike did get into the breeding side of things). If Mike, David, and I had all pooled our efforts it could have been done. :) Tim, Scott and Lyder in Alberta could have pooled their efforts at one point, maybe they even did and I just don't know about it? :) And then there are the other guys - Matt, Justin, even Joey - every one of them could have created a nucleus for a breeder's group. If we didn't live in such a big country I bet it would have happened on a bigger scale by now.

If you want to try and get something going, we could always see about resurrecting an old part of the forum called "special projects". It dealt with such things...
 
tman

tman

Super Moderator
The only problem I see is the time it takes for a pup to grow to breeding size,the price of power,water and food to sustain rays to the breeding size and the risk you are taking for everyone and their money. Still too common for rays to die for various reasons and some being from pregnancy. By the time you factor in all the costs and risk it wouldn't be worth it for the breeder.
It costs lots to maintain stingrays. It currently costs me $400 extra a month in power and water to have my tanks. Not counting the food and equipment and up keep. So take that figure and multiply it by how many months until the rays are ready to breed. Sometimes the rays don't breed or you have a bad male or female so then you have to start all over again and find new mature stock and switch them out. You should only be breeding your female maybe 3 times a year and then rest them. If you have multiple rays it's lots of work juggling them and moving them around. Then you have the job of trying to catch the pups when they are born before they are eaten or damaged. Housing the pups until they are safe to go to the investors tanks. Money,money and more money with lots of time invested. Hence the the price of stingray pups and why I don't think it would be fesible. Easier to just save your money and buy a pair you like and do it for yourself. When you get pups to sell it's a bonus and helps pay the costs a little bit!!!
 
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exoticaquaria

exoticaquaria

Active Member
tman said:
The only problem I see is the time it takes for a pup to grow to breeding size,the price of power,water and food to sustain rays to the breeding size and the risk you are taking for everyone and their money. Still too common for rays to die for various reasons and some being from pregnancy. By the time you factor in all the costs and risk it wouldn't be worth it for the breeder.
It costs lots to maintain stingrays. It currently costs me $400 extra a month in power and water to have my tanks. Not counting the food and equipment and up keep. So take that figure and multiply it by how many months until the rays are ready to breed. Sometimes the rays don't breed or you have a bad male or female so then you have to start all over again and find new mature stock and switch them out. You should only be breeding your female maybe 3 times a year and then rest them. If you have multiple rays it's lots of work juggling them and moving them around. Then you have the job of trying to catch the pups when they are born before they are eaten or damaged. Housing the pups until they are safe to go to the investors tanks. Money,money and more money with lots of time invested. Hence the the price of stingray pups and why I don't think it would be fesible. Easier to just save your money and buy a pair you like and do it for yourself. When you get pups to sell it's a bonus and helps pay the costs a little bit!!!
Click to expand...

This sums it all up. It cost a lot of money and will require a lot of time. Its a lot cheaper to buy rays from Asia or Europe since they are well a head of us and supply is already exceeding demand so even top quality rays are becoming more affordable. Fixed and variable costs in North America cannot justify a small scale operation. Interesting thought though!
 
K

kimrocks

New Member
The idea came up when we saw a few guys selling Proven breeding pairs of Top Quality Discus in BCAquaria - but they tend to have more frys than Rays would have Pups to go around - : ). With a little group effort and investment - it could be a win-win for everyone! - : ).
 
tman

tman

Super Moderator
Thanks Mike I forgot to point out that it's actually cheaper to buy the quality rays off the big operations in Europe and Asia due to the size of their setups,lower overhead and how many pups they can produced. Hence they can offer a variety of rays for a lower price compared to the small setup,high overhead hobbyist with little production.
 
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mitchb

Member
I just got back from the phillipines, never saw any of those guys in the pet mall there. I think the whole area in cartimar I saw one hystrix looking ray but it was very small?

They look amazing though, I think the peso is around 41 right now.
 
K

kimrocks

New Member
mitchb said:
I just got back from the phillipines, never saw any of those guys in the pet mall there. I think the whole area in cartimar I saw one hystrix looking ray but it was very small?

They look amazing though, I think the peso is around 41 right now.
Click to expand...

Not sure if you have been to this site - http://mypalhs.com/forums/

Apparently, this is the top Arowana, Flowerhorn, Stingray, etc - Hobby Site in the Philippines.

Check it out - lots of interesting topics.

Cartimar is for more for those who just started or the day-to-day pet hobbyist of all sorts . . . higher-end special ones are sold elsewhere - : ) - http://www.mypalhs.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?21-Sa-Loob-ng-Tindahan
 
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mitchb

Member
That forum had an arowana, discus, and goldfish show on in the Mall of Asia while I was there.

It was pretty cool, there were some hbrtg from Merlion in a tank there that looked amazing.
 
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MEDHBSI

New Member
Very interesting thread :) it would be a good idea to start up a group breeding group but only breed super rare rays :)
 
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