I have brought in a couple so far.. Both of which were special requests by companies or universities.
I found that the hardest part was getting them to eat. They are ambush rays, unlike the Potamytragons, and they have a much smaller mouth.. The small mouth only allows them to eat specialty foods, as they wouldn't even eat red wigglers or earthworms, unless finely chopped.
The one that I recently had was on the verge of death, as it came in with a very bad fungal infection. The day it arrived, we wrote it off as DOA. After a salt medication, some warm water, and a covered tank for a week or two, it pulled out of its 'sitting there' mode, and became more active. At one point, it looked as if it started to slightly curl its back fins, but it pulled out of it after I covered the tank and added more salt. It was originally in a tank that was getting hit by sunlight for a few hours a day, and I think that really stressed him.. They feel more comfortable if they have a dark confined space to hide behind.
The more I offered it blackworms and ghost shrimp, the more active and responsive it became. At one point, I had him tanked with a few very large juruense cats, with no problems. I would imagine other rays would stress it out, as they are much more aggressive and more active.
As far as hard water and it being sensative to water quality, we treated it like any other ray (both times..) We acclimated them directly to 7.8pH with a 200-300ppm hardness. We kept the temp high at around 82-84, and kept salt in the tank for the first few months. Daily water changes, just like all of ours rays.. We also used a heavy amount of Chemi-Pure in the canister filter upon arrival, not sure how much this helped.
I also once read an interesting tidbit about how many of the Amazonian fish are exposed to hard to nearly brackish water during the flooded season. When the rivers are high, and the amazon virtually becomes 'one big lake' across all of the deltas and riverways, the hard ocean water will often mix with the high coastal waters. This creates some areas of brackish water, and even pushing the hard water deep into the flooded amazons.. This is also the belief of how many of the Motoro and other stingray variants were formed. The stingrays will travel accross these 'water forests' in search of food or breeding, only to become land-locked or forced into another river basin when the water level lowers.
That last beautiful one we had, sadly perished due to a mistake with FedEx. They sent it to the wrong area and it perished. It was going to the University of Colorado as a personal pet to a professor there.. He said he was intrigued by this not-so-often seen species and wanted to study it and make observations and document more to what little information is available.
I can get another one if anyone is interested.. Since DW dosn't mess with them.
Also, Miguel and I were tossing around some ideas of how to keep that Long Tail IN-TACT. Would love to try it
Heres a pic.. Most of you have seen it before, but just for referance! Thanks!
