hollywood69;813310; said:
dude you can have 3 motoros!!!!! get 2 females and a male, or you can have 3 of most rays, except for tiger, china and ceja rays! just research and invest in all the filtration you can think of, you will be fine!
I wish you would quit giving people bad stingray advice and mis-identifying species. Everytime you post, I shake my head.
Motoros get 18" plus, male or female, not including tail. It varies with each individual ray. With a tank only 24" wide, you are very limited for species choices.
Your only choices would be Scobina, Hystrix, or Retic.. Retic is the only one commonly available right now because of the ban from Brazil.
"Teacup" is a generic term, and usually results in a parasite riddled ray with poor care and import quality. If people are calling them 'Teacups' it shows lack of knowledge and they are just regurgitating information from the wholesaler list, and probably don't know much about rays.
$150 for a Motoro sounds right, but only if its healthy. Make sure its treated for internal parasites, and ask for it to be fed in front of you. If it shows its hip or a dent on it's head, it sickly and will likely die. Most importers/wholesalers look at Rays as a cash cow, and don't know much about their care or proper acclimation to home aquaria.
Although you have 220g of water volume to work with, the 30" of height isn't as important as the 24" of depth. The bio-load of stingrays is immense, and you should be prepared to be doing atleast 50% water changes weekly, if not more.. It depends on how many rays you have. If you try to keep 3 motoros, expect 60%+ 2 or 3 times a week, especially as they grow. You could probably slack for a while, but eventually nitrates, ammonia or DOCs will stress the ray and kill it. They need pristine conditions and LOTs of space. Having a 20" ray in a 24" tank and having it graze its tail with every turn about, is not good.. It causes acute stress (small amount over long time) and will eventually kill the ray. Please, stick to the smaller appropriate species and don't attempt to buy juvenile rays and 'upgrade later' or 'hope they dont get too big'.. because, they will get big, and they will die.
Research, Research, Research.. and don't listen to Hollywood.