AMONNIA SPIKE STINGRAY LOOKS BAD HELP!~

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keepinfish

keepinfish

Potamotrygon
MFK Member
Jun 29, 2007
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My brother has a 4.5" female motoro. He said he came home and tested his water and the ammonia was in the caution area? WHat ever that is. anyway he said his motoro is breathing hard and is a whitish color and floating on the top. Sounds like maybe ammonia burn or just stressing from ammonia. What would be a good thing to do to try to save him? I told him a big water change, and adding salt. Is this the best move? he also has another 100gallon setup that has been cycled better. I told him the stress of moving her may kill it.
 
Ammonia is tough on rays. Was the tank not cycled before putting the ray in?

If the temp/PH is similar in the new tank I would move it (assuming it is cycled)

Otherwise Lots and lots of small-medium water changes
 
The tank was not cycled per say. He had a cycled filter on it but I do not think it has enough bacteria on it to handle the bioload. He just moved it to this tank Wednesday.
 
Get prime it will remove the ammonia very fast, It will say ammonia and nitrate remover on the label. I just used it on a customers tank having same ammonia problem and removed it instantly.
 
Hi, I have been having a very similiar problem as you have, so I did a waterchange and then took the advice and went out and bought prime. I have just added prime to the tank and I have a blacket on the tank to reduce stress. Almost instantely after I did a water change my female ray darkened up at least 5x as much as she was. It took my male about 4 hours to respode. Now both of them are swimming around and eating, this was before I hade added the prime! So I am hoping for a quick 100% recovery.Please let me know what you do and what worked for you and what doesn't and I will let you know about what I do. Good luck, I will keep you updated on my rays!
 
Change the water..

Add an ammonia detoxifier..

Find some cycled bio-media and add that to the filtration.

If his 100g is 'cycled better', throw that filter on the existing tank in addition with it's current filter.

What size was the tank the ray was in?

The #1 problem I keep seeing is people under-estimating the bio-load of stingrays. People will buy juvenile rays and be told its 'okay' to keep them short term in tanks of less than 125g, because the ray is small and dosn't need the swimming space. Even if the ray has swimming space, they need a huge amount of water volume to dilute waste levels.. as well as diligent maintenance and water changes, and adequate cycled filtration.
 
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