To prepare to paint the bottom of the 140g tank, I decided to paint my 29g tank, which will soon be a temporary home to the freshwater reticulated stingray pups I'm going to pickup from AJ this week!   I decided to paint the bottom, back, and sides of the tank leaving only the front pane as viewable through.  It took 4 cans of spray paint, and 4 coats to completely black out the panels.  I'm glad i tested this out, I originally thought 5 cans of paint would be enough for the bottom of the 140g, seems like it's going to require about 10-15.  The end result impressed me some.  The simple look of a solid black, bare bottom tank is very pretty in it's own way.  It also looks as though it will draw more attention to the fish in it.  The picture from my camera phone does not do it justice.  I still need to pick up a glass top, light, and heater guard for it to be complete.  I'll update when I bring the pups home (I can't wait!). 

Cool! How big are the pups now?

I'm looking forward to more pix!  I think your right in that the black is going to make  for a very striking contrast with the rays.

AJ told me that the pups have 4" diameter discs right now.  I am going to get a pair, one male, one female. Once I get them, I'll borrow a decent camera from someone, and get some good pics.

Got my rays today!  

I met AJ at The Fish Doctors in Adrian.  The store was pretty cool .  The 3 very large reef tanks have started to impress upon me how awesome a big reef tank can look.  The freshwater stock was nice to check out too. They had a couple fish I've only seen pictures of. 

Back to the rays!  Brought them home, they took to the tank pretty well deciding to use the sponge filter as their hiding spot.  After a couple hours of letting them feel their way around with the tank's lights off, I turned on the lights and fed them.  The female is a pig and devoured half the the worms immediately.  The male seems a little more finicky, and slowly picked up the rest.  Speaking of which, does anyone know if any of the local Toledo Fish Store's carry live blackworms, or can order them? 

I'll have better pics up later when I finally get a better camera on hand, until then, here's cell phone pic. 

VERY cool!!  Until reading about them here I had no idea there even were freshwater rays.  Get more pix posted soon please! They're seriously cool.

Awesome ray! Will it maintain that color or will change as it ages?