Close Call and Trouble With Hystrix (Recommendations Accepted)

Kolossus · Apr 9, 2014

I have a long term captive female hystrix. She'd been doing fine. Yesterday morning and night before last, she had a belly full of tilapia and night crawlers. She was eager to eat and appeared perfect. Last night as I was attempting to feed, my small marble merely brushed against her and she literally spazzed out, going crazy all over the tank bumping into stuff and breathing heavily. As I took a closer look, I could see her veins and tail bone! How could she look so dilapidated from less than 24 hours before. She had two or three more of those fits and started to curl significantly. I immediately did a 50 percent water change on the 180 gallon she's in, raised the temp from 80 to 82, and dosed with prazi pro.

I watched her for a while and she started to relax the curl. I just knew that when I woke up this morning, she'd be dead. She is alive but definitely does not look out of the woods. She did this coughing-looking action this morning and took a quarter lap around the tank but she is holding on. Params are good, other fish/ray pups are good, I'm going to see if she'll take some night crawlers now.

It's like she had a stroke or seizure or something out of nowhere. She was literally eating and find yesterday morning...but last night, thin and crazy looking. What the heck happened?

She typically goes crazy for night crawlers and I often hand feed her...she's not interested at all. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

The only thing new that I changed with the tank was the substrate. But I literally rinsed the sand for about 3 hours straight prior to putting it in the tank (so much so that there was little to no cloud) over a week ago and the other rays are fine.

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keepinfish · Apr 9, 2014

is that the only ray in the tank with issues? i see other rays in the pix? THey all look buried, are they acting ok???

My Flower Ray was a long term captive, and spazzed out and eventually curled and died. When my flower was spazing it would lift its tail straight up and thrash around. I never knew what happened, but really feel stress could have been the cause.?

I have had friends loose a ray that acted bizare and later to find out the filter had sucked in some food and was poisoning the system

Kolossus · Apr 9, 2014

keepinfish said:
is that the only ray in the tank with issues? i see other rays in the pix? THey all look buried, are they acting ok???

My Flower Ray was a long term captive, and spazzed out and eventually curled and died. When my flower was spazing it would lift its tail straight up and thrash around. I never knew what happened, but really feel stress could have been the cause.?

I have had friends loose a ray that acted bizare and later to find out the filter had sucked in some food and was poisoning the system

Yes. She is the only one with issues. I was going to move her to a tank by herself but thought the move might stress her even more. I dosed the entire tank with prazi anyway just to be safe, though if there is some sort of internal parasite issue, I have no idea where it could've come from. There are no real external issues that I can see so I'm a little clueless. The other pups are fine, eating, fat, and happy.

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keepinfish · Apr 9, 2014

Kolossus said:
Yes. She is the only one with issues. I was going to move her to a tank by herself but thought the move might stress her even more. I dosed the entire tank with prazi anyway just to be safe, though if there is some sort of internal parasite issue, I have no idea where it could've come from. There are no real external issues that I can see so I'm a little clueless. The other pups are fine, eating, fat, and happy.

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Are the other rays bothering her?

scott s · Apr 9, 2014

I do not have a lot of experience with Prazi, maybe someone else knows if this would help, but could you add a couple of drops of Praxi to the food to help take care of any internal parasites that might be causing a problem?

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vamptrev · Apr 9, 2014

What temp is the tank?

Ive had this happen a few times but not to this extreme. Ive often seen a dented head overnight and come to the conclusion that its some type of dehydration almost. My remedy has been temp no more then 80 degrees, salt dose, and extra airstones.

Though this may not be your problem, i would advise a full range of tests, ph swings can cause major stress, extreme nitrates, etc

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DB junkie · Apr 9, 2014

scott s said:
I do not have a lot of experience with Prazi, maybe someone else knows if this would help, but could you add a couple of drops of Praxi to the food to help take care of any internal parasites that might be causing a problem?

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I've injected it into worms before......

The coughing could be gill flukes. They should be wiped out with the Prazi, BUT the eggs won't be. I believe it'll take a 3-4 week treatment to make sure they're all gone......

coyotethug · Apr 9, 2014

I am with Trev, do a full range of water tests and post the numbers. Some individual fish are more sensitive than others. I really want to see the dKH reading, too low can cause big pH swings and cause things like ammonia to convert to an ion not processed by biological filtration. Keep up with the big water changes and you might be able to pull her through. Keep us posted.

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FishDog · Apr 9, 2014

My two cents is it is stress related. I do no think it would be any kind of illness unless she was already sick. You said she was fat and happy then freaked out and went downhill which is clear signs of over stressing. I doubt it is caused by another ray or the sand even though the sand was just added. If it was another ray you would see signs of aggression towards her. So this leaves issues with the water. Is this the only system you have running? Do you have a tub that you can put her in to not only isolate her but to give her clean water that is only for her? Even if it is just a tub with an air stone that is at least 30 gallons. Once isolated you know the water can be eliminated and the stress of tank mates can be eliminated. Then you can do 50% W/C on tub or tank daily and just observe her to see if she gets better or worse.

Mr. Allgood · Apr 9, 2014

I had a retic spaz out, curl, and die for no apparent reason once. She was chomping on some worms and my big male simply got near her and she dropped her worm, spazzed out and starting breathing super heavy. A few hours later she started curling and the next day she was dead. It almost seemed like a heart attack or stroke or something. Never had any other problems and couldn't find any similar situations online:/ I wish you best of luck...


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Close Call and Trouble With Hystrix (Recommendations Accepted)

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