My sabina was captive bred from generations of FW rays from the St. Johns river system, and thus far she's done fine in captivity with the amount of filtration I have. I check the water parameters every day and it's always stable, the highest levels of nitrites/nitrates being usually Saturday, my regular water change day. As soon as I take care of it, all is back to being normal. It was semi-expensive to get her set up, but once I had everything, it hasn't been too hard to keep up on water changes and rinsing the filter media on a regular basis. The only thing that set my ray off is the change in substrate, and I removed it on Sunday and left the tank barebottom until I can track down some pool filter sand, and she's back on feed and already coming around. So these guys aren't as hard to keep as it may seem, you just have to do the research, spend the money on proper equipment, get everything up and running and stabilized for a couple weeks beforehand, and be flexible and ready to adjust if anything comes up. I have spent more money on her than any other pet (other than when I used to breed ball pythons), and honestly I feel it's been well worth it. I really enjoy her, and never thought I'd be as attached to a fish as I am to her. Even my friends and family adore her and think she's one of the neatest creatures to keep, and everyone has been pulling for her during this rough patch. I'm friends with the manager of the store where I bought Macy, and he keeps a couple of these rays in a 300g tank at his house. They have been kept for years in brackish water with proper filtration, and do great. So it can be done, you just have to make sure to seek out as much info as possible from all sources as well as people that have successfully kept them.
