Hi All,
Last night, I discovered that my ray (large female motoro) appeared to have excess slime coat that was coming off. She lives in a 300 gallon Rubbermaid pond with 3 comets. She was eating normally when I noticed this and the water was:
Trace of ammonia
No2-0
No3-50 ppm
Ph-7.6-7.8 (the usual)
Temp- 83F
I did a 50% waterchange because I was nervous, and now all is well. The ammonia is back down to 0.
Here's what I'm worried about:
Every other time I check on her, she either has the excess slime or doesn't. I'm not sure if this is normal because recently I've been out of town for 2 months, and before that I had little time to do more than meet the basic requirements for her- no real viewing time.
Activity appears to be on the slightly shy side of normal- she's been eating, active, etc. except for tonight. She's just sitting there buried with the food (shrimp) sitting on top of her. I think that's because I startled her when I walked into the room, but its still making me nervous. I changed my brand of shrimp to some cheaper ones about a month ago and haven't seen any ill effects. I'm switching back to the old brand tonight because they're all I can find now.
The big reasons I'm worried about the slime coat are that I've a) never seen/noticed it before and b) heard stories of fish behaving normally but producing excess slime under normal conditions and then suddenly dying. Possibly due to bacteria.
Anything I should do (meds, chemicals, environmental adjustments, etc), or just calm down?
Thanks for the help in advance!
Last night, I discovered that my ray (large female motoro) appeared to have excess slime coat that was coming off. She lives in a 300 gallon Rubbermaid pond with 3 comets. She was eating normally when I noticed this and the water was:
Trace of ammonia
No2-0
No3-50 ppm
Ph-7.6-7.8 (the usual)
Temp- 83F
I did a 50% waterchange because I was nervous, and now all is well. The ammonia is back down to 0.
Here's what I'm worried about:
Every other time I check on her, she either has the excess slime or doesn't. I'm not sure if this is normal because recently I've been out of town for 2 months, and before that I had little time to do more than meet the basic requirements for her- no real viewing time.
Activity appears to be on the slightly shy side of normal- she's been eating, active, etc. except for tonight. She's just sitting there buried with the food (shrimp) sitting on top of her. I think that's because I startled her when I walked into the room, but its still making me nervous. I changed my brand of shrimp to some cheaper ones about a month ago and haven't seen any ill effects. I'm switching back to the old brand tonight because they're all I can find now.
The big reasons I'm worried about the slime coat are that I've a) never seen/noticed it before and b) heard stories of fish behaving normally but producing excess slime under normal conditions and then suddenly dying. Possibly due to bacteria.
Anything I should do (meds, chemicals, environmental adjustments, etc), or just calm down?
Thanks for the help in advance!
