Stingray tankmates

[charles]

I have quite a few customers of mine trying different tankmates with their stingrays. A lot of hit and miss, but so far, I will list a few fish that has been working so far...

Dollars - red hook, spotted, strip, and black bar (cheapest to most expensive)
They are fast, easy to keep, also busy as bee in the tank. Something good to have swimming around while the rays are cruising the bottom.

Geophagus and gymnogeophagus
They have more coloring in them. Though they are not as busy swimming as the silver dollar variants, their color make up the different. They are also good cleaning left over food.

Arawanna - silver, black, jardini, asian, even afrian...
Beautiful fish, and keep the top portion of your tank busy.

Hatchet fish - jumbo silver hatchet fish.
One of my customer keep 50 of them in his tank with his 2 marble motoro. A very weird combo but it works. Hatchet never sleeps on the bottom. They stay up all the time. Very hard for the rays to get them.

Clownloaches - colorful and good cleaner. I would keep them with rays likes flower and tiger and leo or teacups... The orange color contrast really well.

Peacock bass - always a good choice but you have to make sure your have space and enough filtration.

Knife fish - needs to be very big. So far, small knifefish will get eaten. Though big one is holding its own.

Catfish - tigrinus, juruense, flash zebra, raphael, niger, etc. As long as they are not too small, they are great. Just make sure your ray gets to food and you will be ok.

Please keep in mind the size of fish matters a lot. Small fish will get eaten but the exception of the hatchet.

So far, this is what I have seen and experience. Hope this will help you to pick your tankmates.

[TCR]

I also keep flag tails, severums, armoured cats, tinfoils, and datnoids with mine

[charles]

Flagtail is a hit and miss as well. They sometime will learn to eat the slime coat of the ray.

[stratos]

I can't resist. Asian arowana make perfect tank mates for freshwater stingrays too.

[charles]

It is in the list

[King-eL]

African arowana is a hit or miss for stingrays as the the adult will try to rasp on the back of the stingray causing major damage. African arowana have nastier teeth than the asian, south american and australian aro.

Other good tankmates for stingrays are some of the tropical snakeheads, such the pleuros, lucius, emperor etc etc except the marulius, argus and giant can be a hit or miss.

There are just too many to list.

Here are some of my own experienced back in 2007-2009

Success
-Asian aros and South American aros
-Featherback knifefish except the African brown knifefish as they are small and larger stingray might eat it.
-Gars
-Bush fish
-Snakeheads except the BIG THREE.
-Lungfish except any of the African species
-Spiny eels
-Silver dollars
-Larger species nakedback knifefish such as black ghost knife etc etc.
-Vampire tetra
-wolffish except the amaira
-Larger species of loaches
-Larger species of barbs such as bala shark and tinfoil barbs
-Panggassius catfish. Won't bother the stingrays.

Hit and miss
-Larger species of doradid catfish reason why? Doradids tend to hug most of the food. Usually larger ripsaw catfish will vacuum most of the food. Feeding too much and it could foul the water and causing ammonia poisoning to the stingray.
-Pimelodus catfish can be a hot or miss as same reason with the doradod catfish. Also some larger species have been known to accidentally stung the the stingray on the soft belly during feeding time or when the catfish gets spook.
-Bichirs. Larger healthy fat stingray can be successfully keep with bichir but not the small or skinny stingrays as the bichir will just rip it apart once it sense weakness.
-Cichlids. Some can be too aggressive or opportunistic eaters that might go for the stinngray's eyes. Some small cichlid however will get eaten by larger stingrays.
-Aussie and african arowana. Too aggressive to other tank mates that go to the surface, Stingrays will sometimes go swim on the glass wall and this is when the aro strikes.
-Flagtail are known to suck on the back but some have success
-Plecos. Some species will suck on the stingray's back.
-Swamp eels. Some are too aggressive and biters of anything that pass infront of it.
-Datnoids. Will sometimes get attracted to the stingray's eye when it submerge under the substrate.
-African lungfish. Might bite the stingray.

BIG fail
-6 bars disto. Pretty much not the best tankmates for stingrays or pretty much any fish. Too opportunistic and will nip anything it wants just like a rat in water.
-Black shark. Will suck on the back of the stingray.
-Goldfish. Stingrays will eat goldfish but I never tried mixing larger goldfish.

I was gonna add aba aba but I never tried placing a stingray and aba aba together and same thing with wolffish. So this will be my future goal next.

[BaoBeiZhu]

frontosas?

[budahrox]

frontosas?

Totally different water parameters.

[stingraylord]

Aba Aba knife fish,Armatus,Mbu puffer,ID shark,Striped raphael,Red tail vampire tetra,Black arowana,Lenticulata pike,Black wolf fish and Tigrinus cats work!

[TKD]

I have heard of mixing angels with them.