What would you do?

[Zbosco13]

So I have a beautiful little flagtail, about 5.5/6" long in with my 8.5" marbled motoro, and woke up this morning to see this:

So clearly the poor guy wasn't being too wary and got pounced during the night. Question is, what would you do? Other eye is fine. I'm concerned about whether this is even a survivable injury, and even if it is, what are the chances he lives a decent life, or gets caught again even more easily? Really torn here on whether to euthanize, try to re-home to a tank without murdering murderers living with him, or to give him a shot and ride it out.

 

[UnstoppableJayD]

A missing eye is a very survivable injury- he should be able to live a long happy life... that being said i do not like flagtails with rays for multiple reasons as a lot of flagtails eventually start rasping on the rays disk and injure the ray... so i would move him.

 

[Leo Messi]

a lot of flagtails eventually start rasping on the rays disk and injure the ray... so i would move him.

100%. Happens to a lot of people who have rays with flagtails. Sometimes almost immediately (happened to me, like 2 days after I got me flagtails they started going for the rays so I kicked them out) and sometimes even just after many months/years.

 

[Zbosco13]

Decided to give him a chance , here he is 3 weeks later. He took about 2 days to figure out how to eat again but seems to be thriving now. He is using the discus as a seeing-eye-fish to figure out where the flakes will be. And he steers clear of the bottom half of the tank now haha

 

[SHARK13]

Decided to give him a chance , here he is 3 weeks later. He took about 2 days to figure out how to eat again but seems to be thriving now. He is using the discus as a seeing-eye-fish to figure out where the flakes will be. And he steers clear of the bottom half of the tank now haha

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While he will survive fine now, it's only a matter of time before they take him out completely imo. I've kept many fish with rays over the years, sadly most all of them ended up as meals or a sport kill.
Alot of people may disagree and say "I keep fish with rays no problem"... pups with fish are generally no problem. I think most people underestimate the voracious actions of a pregnant female lol...
For example I lost 3 or 4 adult geo heckelii, and 2 super red sevs to a female during just one pregnancy... I don't keep things I care about with adult rays anymore lol they are top predators for a reason. You can feed them all you want, their natural inclination is to ambush fish at night. They will take them down one at a time.
Just my 2 cents...

 

[CANAMONSTER]

While he will survive fine now, it's only a matter of time before they take him out completely imo. I've kept many fish with rays over the years, sadly most all of them ended up as meals or a sport kill.
Alot of people may disagree and say "I keep fish with rays no problem"... pups with fish are generally no problem. I think most people underestimate the voracious actions of a pregnant female lol...
For example I lost 3 or 4 adult geo heckelii, and 2 super red sevs to a female during just one pregnancy... I don't keep things I care about with adult rays anymore lol they are top predators for a reason. You can feed them all you want, their natural inclination is to ambush fish at night. They will take them down one at a time.
Just my 2 cents...

This could explain why I find my 22 inch Aro with cut up head once in a while in the mornings. Rays could be missing with him during the night forcing him to jump

 

[Peckoltia]

Good to see your Flagtail has managed to heal up.

Everyones experiences are different. I have been keeping FW rays for 7/8 years now at a guess, I have kept them in tanks with only rays and with tank mates. I have never had a ray kill or injure a tank mate to date.

Right now I have my 4 hybrid rays with a group of 7 peacock bass. No issues thus far.

 

[SHARK13]

Good to see your Flagtail has managed to heal up.

Everyones experiences are different. I have been keeping FW rays for 7/8 years now at a guess, I have kept them in tanks with only rays and with tank mates. I have never had a ray kill or injure a tank mate to date.

Right now I have my 4 hybrid rays with a group of 7 peacock bass. No issues thus far.

One of my females has taken down an adult Kelberi and eaten his pectoral fins off. Lucky I got to it before it got out of had. He did survive, and it was a bit funny to watch him swim around, or try to swim around, with nubs for a while after that lol