Blue spotted stingray in a reef?

[mil hse]

I'm in the middle of setting up my 240 (8x2x2) it has dual overflows. One one each end. I'm doing live rock pillars to cover the overflows and one rock out crop in the back middle of the tank. I want to put 2 rays in the tank, my question is:

Does anyone have rays in a semi reef tank (Lps only on the pillars)?

I have watched a few YouTube videos but no one has them in a reefish environment. They will be they only fish in the tank except for a Blonde naso tang and maybe some anglers.

I've been in this hobby for a few years so I know how to keep a reef tank but rays are new to me.

 

[jasonrstewart79]

Rays are very dirty. A lot of the water quality issues that come up would adversely affect most corals. Might be ok with some softies and really hardy LPS. Also, rays grow quite large eventually and must be fed a lot of meaty foods daily. Personally, if I was setting up a ray tank it would be shallow, quite large (400g or larger) with a soft sandy bottom with little rockwork. Any crustaceans would be consumed almost immediately.

 

[mil hse]

Thanks for the response.

The blue spotted rays stay pretty small so I'm ok with the tank size. My skimmer size it's rated to 500+ gallons so I think I'll be ok. I'll do some more research on what I can keep in the tank with them.

 

[jasonrstewart79]

Thanks for the response.

The blue spotted rays stay pretty small so I'm ok with the tank size. My skimmer size it's rated to 500+ gallons so I think I'll be ok. I'll do some more research on what I can keep in the tank with them.

Any crustacean or mollusk will be devoured if it is small enough to fit in the mouth.. any bottom dwelling fish will be as well. The only issue with corals other than water quality is that rays love to bury themsleves and create large sandstorms 3-5 times per day if not more, which will also dirty the water and cover corals with sand.

 

[Saltydrip]

I understand his wanting to try. It would make a cool tank. I really look forward to seeing it come together but this isn't done for a reason.

I had a 200gal amazon tank. I added a ray. He ate and destroyed everything! I ended up with just a ray tank.

If you did some kinda column at the overflows and had a rock shelf 2/3-3/4 up where you could do a simple robust coral and a lot of flow to keep them clean from dust it could work. I doubt many other fish will be ok with a ray on account of the fact that it would be a stressful and hostile tank.

 

[Drae]

David saxby has one in his tank but his tank is gigantic. So is his filtration. I guess you can do a lot when you have a couple thousand gallons. Check it out on you tube.

 

[mil hse]

"If you did some kinda column at the overflows and had a rock shelf 2/3-3/4 up where you could do a simple robust coral and a lot of flow to keep them clean from dust it could work. "That's basically what I was planing. I was going to just point the returns so it blows over the top to them. Also I'm going to use #3 sand, which is still very small but heavier than play sand so hopefully that will help. And with a 75-100gal sump I'll have decent water volume. Also going to be running a large canister filter for extra filtration.
But if any one has advice or input please feel free thanks for the input