Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hi everyone, so I was recently at the pet store to pick up food for my dog, ever since I started my aquaponics setup though I always glance to see what fish they have in case I decide I want to add some new ornamental fish into the system. Well as I was glancing at the tanks, I just so happened to fall in love!! They had an Atlantic Stingray for sale, Atlantic stingray are native to here in Florida, and is capable of surviving in both marine and freshwater. I was wondering if anyone has a system where they use Stingrays by themselves or combined with other fish?

Stingrays could work but would require a special diet since I doubt you could feed them on pellets. Despite their unusual appearance stingrays are good to eat but much like gar they are not worth the effort until they are quite sizable. Their stinger is BAD NEWS I have been stuck before and yes it does hurt like hell, they are much more flexible then you would imagine and can wield that sticker quite effectively. If you wanted one for decorative purposes only and bought one already de-barbed I don't see why you could not use them.

I think the message was clear! Stay away from potentially dangerous creature!
PS: only in the stingray !

Hmm.... Native wild species. In captivity. Wonder what Fish & Game would have to say about that.....

I have kept Motoro stingrays


They are messy feeders and eat ALOT.

Debarbing them is cruel and useless.
A new one will grow back.
They only use it if threatened.
You can stand in tanks with them, as long as you don't step on one!

They are picky about water quality and temp.

They are probably pretty expensive

Motoro's will breed in tanks.

You can feed them pellets, I was feeding them AP food

Well apparently from all of the research I have been doing it would actually make a great addition to an aquaponics system, as due to desalination the stingray osmotic pressure causes water to diffuse into their bodies so a freshwater stingray actually emits 10 times more ammonia than marine stingrays, but in my case I would keep him as ornamental as I could not bring myself to kill this poor little guy



This species of stingray is not restricted here in Florida, the only restrictions they put on them is what time of year you can harvest them

Yea I would never debarb such a nice looking fish...is AP food the only thing you would feed them? how much more would you say they eat compared to most fish?

I fed a mix of aquaculture food, whitebait, prawns, squid and Hikari Massivore.
They increased in size by 50% over 3 months.

Food is probably similar to trout.

But they have corkscrew shaped poo, really strange the first time you see it.

Oooooo, I wants one

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Failing to plan is planing to fail

My current system and some future plans:
viewtopic.php?f=18&t=15555

Acronym reference guide (AP ARG):
viewtopic.php?f=14&t=1275

Was it the corkscrew shaped poo that finally decided it for you?

Didnt it for everyone...?

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~2010/2011~
~2012/2013~
~2014~
~Backyard farming~

All freshwater fish excrete copious amounts of ammonia due to osmotic pressure unlike satlwater fish that have to gulp large amounts of sea water to maintain an osmotic balance

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Captain Ron's System

There is one way to debarb them, people do it alot around here, that is to cut the tail off at the base of the stinger, cruel yes but they have very few natural predators in this brackish water so they do quite well even missing their weapon, we catch them all the time with the skin grown over the nub so it does not kill them. Rays around here get big, largest one I have had boatside was well over 100lbs, note I said boat side because I could not lift him. They are known to get larger in brackish and fresh water then in high salinity. Stingray wings are good eating, a thin strip of cartilage with thick meat on either side, you can cook them just about any way you would prepare a shark steak.

Save your pennies, Motoro's sell for between $350 and $600 each for young pups here...
In the US they range from $60 to $150

!!!! WOW I need to start a stingray business, we have too many of them here.