Anyone have one? Anyone have an opinion on them? My local fish place advised me against it. They said they end up burying themselves with just their eyes peeking out and then another fish will see the eyes and think it's food and attack. And that blind rays lose the ability to locate food and end up starving to death. I'm curious, these guys are really cool.

I don't have any, but I know some people that run a fish farm and get them in now and again.

So long as you keep them with peaceful fish that won't fit in their mouth rays are pretty well behaved. So, plecos, barbs and most cichlids are pretty much right out.

I've never kept silver dollars, but they might work. If you have a ginormus enough tank maybe a pacu or two, or maybe a silver or black arowana, if you want to keep a South American theme.

The gigantic gourami, Osphronemus goramy, may work too. They get big enough to not be snackage, and the ones I've seen are pretty mellow for the most part.

If you keep anything with rays though you just have to make sure they get fed too. Aros and Pacu are eating machines and may not give a ray a chance to get any food.

The biggest drawback to rays is that ya need a tank with a very large area due to their shape. Depth is realtively unimportant, width and length are the limiting factors. In a tank too small, the edge of their "wing" curl up. A ray that is going to get 30" long needs a tank at least 3'wide and 6'long, preferably 8' long.

I'm sure the occasional fish may take advantage of a ray's eyes pokin' out of the sand, but this is a ray's natural behavior, so it seems that if that was the case most wild rays would end up eyeless sooner or later. I've seen plenty of rays in tanks with large geophagine cichlids, oscars, large barbs and aros. I'd stay away from large bottom-dwelling catfish, myself, but shovelnoses of various types would likely be alright.

WYite

I know they coexist in the wild, but knowing what most rays cost, there's no way I'd put one in with any Oscar.

Most tanks I've seen with rays in them are species only tanks...and like Wyite mentioned the tanks are usually custom with a very large footprint.

Either 150 or 200g livestock tubs work just fine for 'em too.

Thanks everyone! I've decided against it. My 150 doesn't have a huge footprint and the footprint it has is loaded with plants and other obstacles, so probably not a wise choice.

Ok here we go. "Teacup rays" is just a store name for small rays. They are cheaper because the don't survive very well at such a young age. The first step in buying a ray is finding what type it is. Most teacup rays are retitic rays (seen some hystrix too)which actually stay a little smaller that the rest of them at around 18" disk diameter. I actually kept 2 motoro's for 3 years before selling them in a 220 gallon. There are some good comments on here about tank size. Minimum for a larger ray is i'd say 36" wide by 72" long. Rays can be very rewarding as a pet, i do not recomend this but mine were quite hand tame and would rise out of the water for food. They do however require very clean water and can at times be very messy requiring massive filtration. If you have any further questions PM me i've kept 4 differet types of rays over the past 10 years and have been lucky enough to have bred some of them.

Huh, I thought all Teacups were Potamotrygon reticulatus. I didn't know they sold other ones as Teacups too or was that just accidental?

I'd like to say though, any further questions about rays, I'd rather see asked out here so we can all learn about them. I personally don't want any, but I'd be more than happy to hear about anyone's first hand experiences with them.

They're neat fish but have fairly crazy requirements.

At one time Hystrix rays were pretty cheap, at least here they where i could buy an 6-8" ray for around 100-125$ but that was 15 years ago when blue eyed plecos were affordable....The biggest requirements i know of for rays is very clean water and a larger (wider?) tank. Mine have always eaten pellets and shrimp and not really a bother. I don't recomend a really fine sand in a ray tank do to the fact it will always be floating around. I do recomend heavy filtration as much as possiable. Nitrates kill rays so only feed them what they eat and watch them feed to make sure. They love water changes and often swim in the incomming water. I have always used a power head in there tanks for them to swim in. I must say do your reserch on rays before buying them, they are expensive and some require greater attention than others. For a begginer i recomend Motoro's as they are quite hardy in comparison to black rays. I have also heard many keepers do not use charcoal in there filters with rays do to it effecting there magnetic feilds? i'm not a scientist and don't really know much about this. I do use charcoal in my tanks. Remember check out as many sites as possiable about rays there are alot of great ray keepers around and very helpful with a lot more knowledge than i have. my 2 cents.