Biggest mistakes you made?

[Charliea36]

Hey everyone I thought it might be fun to share biggest mistakes you have made in the hobby of stingrays. I think it would be great to read some stuff for any new people in the hobby to avoid those mistakes. If you have a funny story please post that too. Pictures are welcomed as well.

 

[Charliea36]

My dumbest mistake was forgetting to disconnect the canister and when I disconnect the hose water started shooting all over my face and house. It's funny now but at 1am I was pissed.

 

[Zbosco13]

keeping prey species with a ray. my marble is a stone-cold fish killer. more headaches than the tank aesthetics justify

 

[Charliea36]

keeping prey species with a ray. my marble is a stone-cold fish killer. more headaches than the tank aesthetics justify

Hopfully nothing expensive. I got my marble with some discus. The discus are pretty huge I hope my ray doesn't eat them when she gets bigger

 

[CANAMONSTER]

Getting a wild caught marble with no experience

 

[Charliea36]

Getting a wild caught marble with no experience

I pretty much did the same and I am pretty lucky I read a ton of this here on this site and watched a ton of YouTube videos before I got mine. Still I didn't cover the heaters and my marble got burned a little. Thank god she recovered quickly and u can barely see any scaring

 

[Zbosco13]

Hopfully nothing expensive. I got my marble with some discus. The discus are pretty huge I hope my ray doesn't eat them when she gets bigger

yeah, even when she was 5-6" she pounced our discus, thus why we no longer have discus. never actually killed one, but literally everything i put with her she tries to kill. Geos, severums, flagtails, discus, doesnt matter. If it swims, it dies.

 

[Charliea36]

She's about 8 inches and so far not killing anyone in the tank. I do feed her about 4 times a day and break it into every 4 to 5 hrs

 

[Zbosco13]

She's about 8 inches and so far not killing anyone in the tank. I do feed her about 4 times a day and break it into every 4 to 5 hrs

Yup, thats about the same as mine, she's taken down fish up to 6". Maybe she just has a higher prey drive than others. her tail is nice and fat so she can'y possibly be THAT hungry...

 

[Bigfishnut]

Good thread!! Great idea...let's see, I've made all kinds of mistakes. My first ray I had shipped from florida without seeing the ray first...not even pictures. It came the next day very small and weak with some kind of skin infection. Had no idea what to do having never kept rays before. Looking back I'm sure my filtration wasn't adequate, didn't know what to feed it really. Needless to say, I lost that ray. Was tough because I'd been working towards getting a ray for a couple years, even built the tank specifically to grow out pups. I also got a wild caught ray and didn't know what to do...it was super skinney and wouldn't eat. Luckily some one on here recognized the ray and put me in touch with the person who imported it and they told me what to do. Now he's a hog!