pfkmmag

Opinion
Nathan hill
Keeping stingrays is a niche
fascination, for sure. And despite
the advent of prodigiously bigger
tanks – and big ideas – it’s probably
best if it stays that way…
Nathan Hill
is Practical
Fishkeeping
magazine’s
associate editor,
biotope fancier,
aquascape
dabbler and
part-time amateur
skateboarder.
Are stingrays
tankbusters? The freshwater
ones, I mean. I’ve been
brooding on it since I read
Dave Wolfenden’s (really
good) feature on them on
page 82 this month. And,
moreover, will I end up
alienating readers if I say that they are?
I guess that’s a risk that comes with the
territory of formulating my thoughts.
Many successes
I recall a discussion that came up with an
avid stingray fan a while back. He couldn’t
understand why freshwater stingrays were
being classed as tankbusters at all. His
reasoning was that so many folks are
keeping them successfully – and not just
keeping them, but breeding them as well.
Now I can’t deny that stingrays are being
bred in prodigious numbers. But I wonder
if this stingray fan was confusing what
makes a tankbuster? It’s new to me to
Stingrays in an
indoor pond.
classify a tankbuster as a fish that doesn’t
breed readily in the home aquarium.
Breeding activity doesn’t necessarily
correspond to welfare at all, of course. I’ve
known of many fish that breed in less than
optimal conditions. In my public aquarium
days, our indigenous ray tank was a horrid
and primitive thing, with barely functioning
undergravel filters and constant water
quality woes. Could we stop them breeding
in there? Could we heck. Every morning
we were netting out eggs and babies.
As for the claim that people are keeping
them successfully, I’d be inclined to leaf
through the dictionary and see if we’re
using the same definition of success. Is
mere survival success? I guess for some it
is. But is it success to have a fish in a tank
not even as wide as its own disc? In a
tank where to turn around is a chore? I’m
not sure we’d be reading from the same
page with such a claim. For me, success
would be seeing stingrays behaving as
they would in the wild.
shutterstock
Good intentions
In the hobby, for the best part, the stingray
phenomenon has been left well alone.
The collective of stingray keepers – there
are many stingray keepers – are a breed
apart from most ‘lay’ aquarists.
Nobody buys a stingray by accident or
on a whim – they’re too expensive for that.
Most stingray keepers do seem to have
good-sized tanks. Some have even set up
indoor pseudo ponds – large bodies of
water with three bricked and lined sides
and maybe a glass panel at the front.
There are more large tanks now than
there have ever been. I see images of folks
sharing their custom purchases, hulking
great lumps of glass on welded metal
stands. I see people actually researching
the fish before they buy them. They post on
social media, visit forums, watch videos.
It feels like evolution of the hobby. A
handful of aquarists who have grown fat
on nano tanks are pupating, emerging as
new creatures with fresh ideas. As nano
declines, the big tanks grow, in all senses.
I prefer to observe and reflect the
industry, rather than make proclamations
about it. And my observation is that the
stingray keepers seem to be sailing a
pretty good ship. With the ever-present
exceptions, they care and invest in their
fish, and in no half-hearted manner. The
fish are trophies, for sure. All dangerous
fish have a trophy quality about them, and
stingrays have the power to kill. But these
trophies are also pretty. And pricey.
That’s the real difference, I think. The
classic tankbusters were ‘throwaway’ fish.
Cheap. Disposable. A stingray is anything
but. Maybe they’re not tankbusters after
all. Maybe there’s something to be said
for being a trophy fish...
114 PRACTICAL FISHKEEPING
Guess the fish answer from page 30: Dwarf gourami, Thichogaster lalius