tank size

[Fish-Fanatic]

I was thinking about maybe getting a freshwater stingray. ive heard they arent terribbly hard to take care of, and i think it would be fun to have one. If i do get one what size of tank would it need and would it have anyother needs i would have to think about? and also would it do good with other fish in the tank?


Thanks in advance!

 

[CFC]

ive heard they arent terribbly hard to take care of, and i think it would be fun to have one

Depends what you call difficult to keep? Stingrays most often cannot live in standard tapwater as they need soft acidic nitrate free water, nitrates must never be allowed to excede 20ppm. They also can be very difficult to feed and often refuse to eat anything but live food, you may think "oh thats easy i'll just dump 30 feeders a week in the tank" but stingrays are very subseptable to disease and the use of feeders is often the cause of early demise.
The smallest tank size for a adult stingray would be 5x2x2 although a larger tank would be better, particually a wider one. They can be kept with non aggressive sedate fish that are too large to swallow, in larger tanks silver arowanas make good choices and some people have had good luck keeping them with discus. Avoid fish that are too active which will stress the ray, stress is the major cause of disease outbreak in fish and stingrays cannot be treated with most of the standard off the shelf medications.

 

[rbcxpeter]

how big do these rays grow? and how much do they go for? I was thinking about getting one as soon as i transfer two oscars and a managuense over to another tank. Right now, the tank that I'm planning to put it in has 2 silver arowanas and a tiger gold datnoid. A ray can live happily in there right?

 

[ste2k3]

60 gallonis on the small side but will do to grow rays on. I wouldn't keep the tiger fish with them as they have different water conditions. they need hard alkali water where as rays need soft acidic water. the ray should mix with the arowanas but with the tank only being 60 gallons, there may be a bit of fighting, so its up to you. personally, I wouldn't. rays here go for £50 upwards. motoros go for around £120 upwards. it depends on what sepecise of ray you are talking about whe you say how big do they grow, the smaller rays tend to stay at around 12" disc in captivity while motro's get much larger.

ste

 

[DiXoN]

you do really need to know what kind of ray you would be getting as most get 24'' + and some a lot bigger than that.
there is a couple of specie that grow to around 14'' max disc size but even then you have to take into account the tail which can be the same size as the disc so a 60g for life would not be big enough imo
as for the rest of the info see CFC's post
dixon

 

[Max]

the ones near me go for 90$ usd for small. and 120$ for larger.

 

[untilitsleeps]

I keep freshwater stingrays, i dont know who told you they are easy to keep is a bit bonkers mate. ive had no end of trouble with them (but i spose thats the appeal in keeping them)

The Often refuse food for no apparent reason, water quality can be spot on, they are not getting bullied as far as i can see, yet they refuse to eat i even had one die because of this

As already said, they will grow to 12" plus, and very quickly too in my experience they usually hit adult size in around 12 months. another point id like to make is surface area is far more important that tank capacity, you need a shallow tank with a huge surface area. i keep mine in a very large community tank, with everything from a parroon shark catfish to a silver arowana. most people would disagree with my choice of tank mates for them but so far they have got on like a house on fire.

Also they prefer an empty tank with no substrate which makes for an ugly looking tank IMO.