Manta Ray Cleaning Stations | Ocean Calling Retreats

Reef manta ray gliding over a sandy lagoon. Photo: naushad mohamed, Unsplash

A manta ray cleaning station is a fixed spot on a reef where small cleaner fish pick parasites, dead skin and debris off manta rays, and where the same mantas come back again and again. If you see a manta hovering over one place, it is usually being cleaned. The most useful thing a diver can do there is simple: keep your distance, stay low and still, and never touch.

Not resting, being cleaned

When you find a manta hovering over the same coral head for many minutes, it is easy to think the animal is taking a break. It is not. It is at a cleaning station, one of the quietly remarkable pieces of reef life, and one of the easiest places for a kind, well-meaning diver to do harm without noticing.

Cleaning stations are usually a coral head, a rocky outcrop or a bommie where small cleaner fish live. Larger animals visit them a bit like we visit a clinic. Mantas are among the largest and most regular patients, and for divers they are often the best chance of a long, calm encounter.

What happens at a manta ray cleaning station?

According to the Manta Trust, the small fish at a cleaning station remove bacteria and debris from a manta’s skin, gills and mouth. That helps the ray keep its skin healthy and, for injured animals, helps keep wounds clean while they heal. The manta holds a special posture while this happens, slow and steady, often circling or hovering over the station so the cleaners can work.

These visits can be long. A Manta Trust master’s study using remote video at cleaning stations in the Maldives recorded cleaning events lasting up to three and a half hours. That is a lot of time for an animal that otherwise spends much of its life swimming and feeding, and it shows how much these stations matter.

The same mantas, the same stations

Mantas do not visit cleaning stations at random. A later Manta Trust study in Maamunagau Lagoon, in the Maldives, filmed three cleaning stations with remote underwater cameras over three years and recorded 470 sightings of 98 individually identified reef manta rays. More than 83% of the sightings were of young mantas. The researchers suggest that young reef mantas may have a particularly strong attachment to cleaning stations, and they see the lagoon as more evidence of a potential nursery. Another Manta Trust abstract from the same project reports that both adults and juveniles stayed around and kept returning to the stations.

This is one lagoon, studied with cameras, so it cannot tell us how every cleaning station works. But it fits a pattern seen in other places, such as Komodo, where long-term photo identification shows mantas returning to the same sites over many years. We explain that in what Komodo’s manta sites are actually for.

Why touching a manta is worse than it looks

This is where diver behaviour matters for biology, not only for manners. Fish skin, manta skin included, is covered in a layer of mucus. A 2018 review in the Iranian Journal of Veterinary Research describes this mucus as a first line of defence against disease, containing immune components such as antimicrobial peptides, lysozymes, lectins and proteases. A hand on a manta’s back disturbs that layer. Even a gentle hand. Even the hand of someone who loves the animal.

Now picture where that happens: at a station whose whole purpose is to keep the manta’s skin clean, on an animal that may already be healing from a wound or carrying parasites. Touching also interrupts the cleaning itself, and a manta that leaves a station halfway through has lost what it came for.

The conservation layer: what the research says about divers

The evidence on divers is more nuanced than “divers are bad”. A 2019 study at manta feeding sites in the Maldives found that only 44% of observed interactions between people and mantas followed the existing guidelines, and that interactions closer than three metres caused significantly more avoidance behaviour. Approaching from the front was among the behaviours linked to mantas stopping feeding. That work helped build a code of conduct based on evidence.

Cleaning stations are a different situation from feeding sites, and the guidance for them may differ in detail. I have seen a summary suggesting that well-behaved scuba divers have little impact at Maldivian cleaning stations, but I could not check the study itself, so I treat it as unconfirmed. What is clear is that any low impact depends on divers behaving well, staying to the side and keeping still. Reef mantas are listed as Vulnerable, they reproduce slowly, and a crowded, chaotic station is exactly what the codes of conduct are meant to prevent.

What good etiquette looks like

The Manta Trust guidance is clear. Do not approach closer than 3 metres. Stay still and let the manta come to you. When entering the water near a manta, do it quietly and no closer than 10 metres. At a cleaning station, stay low and to the side of the station rather than on top of it. Never block a manta’s path, never chase, and never touch. Local rules can be stricter, so follow your operator’s briefing and the rules of the place. Wildlife encounters are unpredictable. Diving or snorkelling with manta rays should always follow local regulations and experienced professional guidance.

A camera can help you keep your hands to yourself. A small action camera lets you record the moment from a respectful distance, though good buoyancy matters more than any gear. For snorkellers watching a station from above, a well-fitting low-volume mask and snorkel makes it easier to float quietly instead of kicking.

This piece is deliberately narrower than our guide to ethical manta swimming in Bali, which covers the practical side of one specific swim. Here the focus is the biology of the cleaning station and why hands stay off, wherever in the world you find one. For the wider principles behind how we choose which encounters to offer at all, see ethical wildlife encounters in ocean travel.

Manta ray encounters are never guaranteed, and Ocean Calling never chases, touches, blocks or baits manta rays or any other marine wildlife. If this made you curious about watching a manta hold still at its own cleaning station, quietly and from a respectful distance, you can explore our retreats and trips.

Questions people ask

What is a manta ray cleaning station?

A fixed spot on a reef, often a coral head or rock, where small cleaner fish remove bacteria, parasites and debris from a manta’s skin, gills and mouth. Mantas return to the same stations again and again.

How long does a manta stay at a cleaning station?

It varies. Remote video at Maldivian cleaning stations recorded cleaning events lasting up to about three and a half hours.

Why should you never touch a manta ray?

Fish skin is protected by a mucus layer that contains immune components and acts as a first line of defence against disease. Touching disturbs it, interrupts cleaning and can make the manta leave.

How close can I get to a manta?

The Manta Trust asks people not to approach closer than 3 metres, to stay still and let the manta come to them, and to enter the water no closer than 10 metres. Research at feeding sites found more avoidance behaviour within 3 metres.

Is it better to snorkel or dive at a cleaning station?

Both can be done gently. Divers should stay low and to the side of the station, and snorkellers should stay at the surface and let mantas pass below. In both cases, keep at least 3 metres away and never touch.

Are young mantas found at cleaning stations?

Yes. In Maamunagau Lagoon, Maldives, more than 83% of 470 sightings at cleaning stations were of young mantas, which researchers see as evidence of a potential nursery area.

Wildlife encounters are never guaranteed and never forced. Ocean Calling works only with vetted, ethical local operators, and every animal is free to approach, or not, entirely on its own terms.

Sources & further reading

Further reading on Ocean Calling: More from the journal · Wildlife & the law · See the retreats · Ocean Atlas

Manta Ray Cleaning Stations: Why You Should Never Touch