How much do you feed your ray?

I feed my rays 2 times a day. Smaller amount in the morning, and larger in the evening.

I have 7 motoro rays.. 2 are 12", and 5 are 6". I do not use UV, and I 50% water change every other day.

I feed a handful of krill in the morning, and 2 handfuls of krill, silversides, tilapia mix.

Once every two days is not enough IMO. Rays have too high metabolism.

I feed twice per day with a very mixed diet but each ray eats about 10 to 15 massivore each. My water is always crystal or gin clear. I do run uv but that will not affect clarity much as in the aquarium they ares for sterilisation.

Can you post a bit about your setup, my sump is 5x2.5x2 and has a filter sock plus 3sheets of pond filter on top of the bio, the turnover is about 4-6 times per hour. I also have an external filter for backup and a 30gal drip once per day for 1 hour.

I think the answer is more filtration and faster turnover, I recently upped my turnover as I could notice if the ray took a dump.

Sorry mate but you are not correct. A uv clarifier clarifies and steriliser sterilises. The flow rate does need to be correct....to the manufacturers spec but it is the proximity of the water film to the uv tube that makes the difference, it is far closer on a steriliser.

I have run them on shop systems, marine tanks and all of my home tanks and I ALWAYS run for sterilisation.

You may want to talk to an industry giant like tmc if you do not believe me, they produce them for the industry and they run them on all of their quarantine tanks, they are not bothered by water clarity.

Also....clarifiers only clarify water such as green water like in a koi pond as they kill algae that is free floating and passing through the clarifier. Particulate such as waste or uneaten food will not be clarified in any significance as it is not being changed in any way by the exposure to uv. To clear dirty water from food you need a good mechanical filter along with enough turnover to allow the filter to clear the volume.

Just Toby said:

Sorry mate but you are not correct. A uv clarifier clarifies and steriliser sterilises. The flow rate does need to be correct....to the manufacturers spec but it is the proximity of the water film to the uv tube that makes the difference, it is far closer on a steriliser.

I have run them on shop systems, marine tanks and all of my home tanks and I ALWAYS run for sterilisation.

You may want to talk to an industry giant like tmc if you do not believe me, they produce them for the industry and they run them on all of their quarantine tanks, they are not bothered by water clarity.

Click to expand...

I run an 80 watt UV on my koi tank. If you just let the water run through without giving it a specific flow rate, it will only clarify the water. You need to make sure you have it running through the UV at a specific rate to actually sterilize the water. UVs don't just instantly kill everything in the water in a milisecond. It does have to run through at a certain flow to kill specific things. And I am talking about a UV Sterilizer.

I don't care if you say you have run them on shop systems or your home, or where ever you claim to run them.. you can run them all you want, but that doesn't mean you are running it correctly to do it's job 100%.

You have to make sure that you chose the correct UV for your size tank as well.

Once every 2 days might be good for your water clarity but not for your rays. I feed mine twice daily, sometimes once daily if I am busy. For my tank with 5 Leos, 3 Henlei, 2 Castexi, and 2 Hybrids I feed 2 medium fillets or 1 big fillet of tilapia. I follow that with about 50 night crawlers for desert. If I miss one of there meals I give them more nightcrawlers, they don't complain.

These rays are all 10-12" except for one of my castexi who is about 16". I also give them silversides and blackworms as a treat sometimes.

I have a 25W UV and a 13W UV on this tank, water stays perfectly clear. If your water isn't staying clear it might be a lack of mechanical filtration, I am a big fan of pressurized sponge filters for keeping the water clear.

Mshill90, I am not going to waste too much time on this as it is really basic stuff.

Yes, flow rate is vital whether it is a clarifier or steriliser, we are both agreed on that.

What I am telling you is that clarifiers kill algae and not they don't kill everything on first pass but even a clarifier at the slower end of what the manufacturer recommends will hardly kill any bacteria.

I am also telling you that if your water in your tank is not clear, on an indoor stingray tank then it is not algae that is making it unclear therefore a clarifier will do nothing for clarity. It is particles of dirt in the tank and as the other posters have said, it is mechanical filtration that you need. Water simply goes in to a uv one end and comes out the other with the exact same amount of dirt...it is just that in green algae water the alage will, eventually, die and dead algae sinks in clumps and is picked but by the mechanical filter.

With a uv steriliser it kills bacteria and some algae due to the fact that uv radiation is exposed the bacteria with the crystal tube allowing the water film much closer to the uv rays which uses a different wavelength.

You could run 400 uv clarifiers and 400 sterilisers on muddy water and it would have no impact at all..unless it clogged up. If you run a big mechanical filter on muddy water it will clear.

Please try to understand that a clarifier will not clarify dirty water if the dirt is suspended particulate matter.

Well of course it's not going to work for dirt. I am not that stupid.

But majority of fish keepers get UV's so it keeps their water clear from algae.