Would this be a possibility?

I'm building a 7x3x3 which turns out to be about 470 gallons, other then a bunch of upper jaw bichirs there will only be a wolf (hopefully lacerdae) on the bottom

I'm not sure on this at all, which is why I'm asking you rayheads about it, would a ray fit in with them? I know the tank is good for smaller types like retics and hystrix but Im not so sure they'll all play nice. I've heard mixed opinions on bichir and rays, the main thing seems that the bichirs will nibble on the ray disc.

Is it worth a try or should I hold off on rays? The filtration will be 2x eheim 2217s, multiple power heads with pre filter and sponge filters, UV and maybe a sump. And massive pothos. An LFS nearby gets baby retics a lot, priced quite reasonably around 125

BTW I'm a poly addict so getting rid of some Poly's for the ray or rays is out of the question haha. Ideally it would be great to be able to house a pair so I could get some pups out of it

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I was told one 2217 would be good for a 160 so I figured dual 2217s plus 3 large sponge filters and at least 2 power heads with prefilters would do the trick, I haven't double checked this online though which I realize is dumb of me, just going on what the guy I bought the first one from said

I can adjust the filtration scheme, if its within my budget I'll go with adding 2 2262s instead, that combined with the 2217, UV sterilizer and all the power heads and sponge filters should be good then right?

Also the only upper jaws that will be staying in the big tank long term are ornate, teugelsi and weeksii (they can all reach a solid 20 inch maybe more), I plan on separating the smaller palmas specie once they start to be dwarfed by the other stock.

I can adjust my plan to fit the ray in as long as it isn't too drastic, if its going to be I'll hold off on rays until I get my own place and build the big tile pond I plan on. That's when I will truly get into rays as I find them fascinating, they simply have too much beauty and allure for me to pass on them for life. I'm also not the type of person to put such a masterpiece of nature through bad husbandry, hence why I'm asking here lol



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Yeah I realize now I was thinking based on faulty info from the guy I got the 2217 from that they are more powerful then they really are and am changing my filtration scheme, probably going to start a thread in the proper area.

Yeah the whole nipping the disc seems to be what everyone's heard as I said in the first post, you think a retic or hystrix wod be able to take a head off an ornate, teugelsi or weeksii? They get pretty beefy, but like I said if its too big of a risk to the bichir I'll hold off till I get my own place and the 7x7 pond I plan on building. Crappy thing is in September I'm getting surgery so I'll be one foot down for a year then they do the other foot so I'll be a gimp for 2 years. So this tank would have to last them at least that as I won't be capable of building a new one for quite a while

As far as keeping water clean goes I'm OCD about it, i test daily and if there's even 10 ppms of nitrate I do a WC.. So don't worry about that lol

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Nice that's good news, so from what I gather it would be good to have triple the filtration with respect to the tank volume?

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rodger said:

2 ft Ornate? I've never even heard of one that big. Could we see a picture? That baby has got to be thick!

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Click to expand...

Right that's one of the only fish I've heard of that actually reached a max length for the specie

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