anyone had this problem
- Thread starter T1KARMANN
- Start date
You are not getting sane advice imo.
salt water holds less oxygen than fresh, anyone who says salt will help with less oxygen in warmer water is simply wrong
http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/oxygen-solubility-water-d_841.html
Turning up the temp and at the same time adding salt is not good, very stressful for any fish, and if you are getting wrong advice about something as basic as that how much can you trust any other advice you are getting?
more than 1 tblspn salt per 10 gallons is redundant, it does nothing against bad bacteria and only a little against fungus and at the same time will retard your biofiltration...double whammy of stress at a time when your rays need to be unstressed! not good!!
Oh sure, many hobbyists will claim anecdotally that high concentrations of salt are helpful, but the science says otherwise.
Why do you add water conditioner treatments direct to the tank? This is just inviting problems. you absolutely should not do water chem adjustments to the water with the fish in it, you should do that in a separate pre-holding tank or tub. why put your very valuable fish , worth many $$$$$s, in the middle of a chemical reaction?
Don;t you have a hospital tank?
If not why not? thousands of $$$s in rays and no hospital or back-up?
really??
you seem about as prepared for a problem as BP in the Gulf.
how do you know there is any real health problem at all apart from behaviour? maybe the flowers are stressed by the much more agressive black rays and just need to be seperated? why treat otherwise healthy rays ( stressing them) ??
treat only the sick animals.
Raising temperature incubates bacterial problems and against parasites is completely ineffective except against hexamita. Tapeworms, capilaria etc just grow faster. Anyone who suggests raising the temperature to 90 or above " for parasites" simply is wrong.
Insecticide from shrimp fed to your rays??? that is so improbable you can discount that idea.
My first thought is that you have an inevitable build up of organics from insufficient water changes . Flowers are more sensitive to this kind of problem, so it is normal that they would react badly before other rays.
Here's what imo you should be doing imo:
Put the flowers in a quiet clean clean clean hospital/quarantine tank.
At least:
change water change water change water, at least 50% every day, until the problem is solved, whether medicating or not.
USE AGED WATER. no conditioner ( unless you have chloramine for sure) no salt...nothing!!!!!!!!!
temp around 80-82F, NOT higher!
Temp above 90 for any extended period of time is very stressful for rays ,
ease off on feeding.
You want to medicate? fine, first identify the parasite. A cheap microscope helps and is easy to use to ID parasite eggs or segments in their poop.
I would also suggest a change of diet to include much greater variety. Fatty liver disease is a factor in unexplained death in longer term captive rays and pellet diets are known to contribute to this problem, and guess what the symptoms of that can be, before rays up and die for no apparent reason?
I have killed more rays, especially Flowers than anyone here so I have some experience with this!
good luck
salt water holds less oxygen than fresh, anyone who says salt will help with less oxygen in warmer water is simply wrong
http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/oxygen-solubility-water-d_841.html
Turning up the temp and at the same time adding salt is not good, very stressful for any fish, and if you are getting wrong advice about something as basic as that how much can you trust any other advice you are getting?
more than 1 tblspn salt per 10 gallons is redundant, it does nothing against bad bacteria and only a little against fungus and at the same time will retard your biofiltration...double whammy of stress at a time when your rays need to be unstressed! not good!!
Oh sure, many hobbyists will claim anecdotally that high concentrations of salt are helpful, but the science says otherwise.
Why do you add water conditioner treatments direct to the tank? This is just inviting problems. you absolutely should not do water chem adjustments to the water with the fish in it, you should do that in a separate pre-holding tank or tub. why put your very valuable fish , worth many $$$$$s, in the middle of a chemical reaction?
Don;t you have a hospital tank?
If not why not? thousands of $$$s in rays and no hospital or back-up?
really??
you seem about as prepared for a problem as BP in the Gulf.
how do you know there is any real health problem at all apart from behaviour? maybe the flowers are stressed by the much more agressive black rays and just need to be seperated? why treat otherwise healthy rays ( stressing them) ??
treat only the sick animals.
Raising temperature incubates bacterial problems and against parasites is completely ineffective except against hexamita. Tapeworms, capilaria etc just grow faster. Anyone who suggests raising the temperature to 90 or above " for parasites" simply is wrong.
Insecticide from shrimp fed to your rays??? that is so improbable you can discount that idea.
My first thought is that you have an inevitable build up of organics from insufficient water changes . Flowers are more sensitive to this kind of problem, so it is normal that they would react badly before other rays.
Here's what imo you should be doing imo:
Put the flowers in a quiet clean clean clean hospital/quarantine tank.
At least:
change water change water change water, at least 50% every day, until the problem is solved, whether medicating or not.
USE AGED WATER. no conditioner ( unless you have chloramine for sure) no salt...nothing!!!!!!!!!
temp around 80-82F, NOT higher!
Temp above 90 for any extended period of time is very stressful for rays ,
ease off on feeding.
You want to medicate? fine, first identify the parasite. A cheap microscope helps and is easy to use to ID parasite eggs or segments in their poop.
I would also suggest a change of diet to include much greater variety. Fatty liver disease is a factor in unexplained death in longer term captive rays and pellet diets are known to contribute to this problem, and guess what the symptoms of that can be, before rays up and die for no apparent reason?
I have killed more rays, especially Flowers than anyone here so I have some experience with this!
good luck
I have been watching this thread. You can be almost certain it is not parasites as some if not all the other fish would show symptoms. I honestly think it is water related. Correct me if I am wrong, but the affected rays have been with you the longest? I know from many articles(online) and from on here that you used polyfilter on your old tank with great success. I also love polyfilter and know they are very effective. How many are you running on the new tank? Your new tank us roughly three times as large as your old one. So either three times the amount of polyfilter or change the polyfilter three time as frequently.
I wonder wether there is something building up that they are bothered by after years of perfect water. The other fish are hardier or new. Like you stated we only test for half a dozen parameters. My well water gets tested for around a dozen.
Just something else to confuse the mass of theories.
I wonder wether there is something building up that they are bothered by after years of perfect water. The other fish are hardier or new. Like you stated we only test for half a dozen parameters. My well water gets tested for around a dozen.
Just something else to confuse the mass of theories.
DavidW;4220936; said:
Always interesting when you stop in. Glad to see you are still around. Best advice I have seen yet. Even if it is a little poignant
I think its water related too, why would fishes that have been captive suddenly catch some strange disease ? unless the water makes it happen?
Looking at some of the photos of this tank I would say it was overstocked and that the waterchanges are insuficient .
Does someone fly over the Tapajos occaisionally and dump salt in to make sure the fish are ok?
Change water with an RO unit not HMA.
On this tank you should be changing at least 70-100 gallons per day .
A river changes about 1x per 2-3 seconds where these fish live.
Looking at some of the photos of this tank I would say it was overstocked and that the waterchanges are insuficient .
Does someone fly over the Tapajos occaisionally and dump salt in to make sure the fish are ok?
Change water with an RO unit not HMA.
On this tank you should be changing at least 70-100 gallons per day .
A river changes about 1x per 2-3 seconds where these fish live.
lol, wow am I glad don't have to try and figure out what I should do with all the advice given. Just to add to the confusion.
We both just started up some big tanks and I found with the extra livestock and feedings that the pellets I was feeding was just passing thru some of the fish causing some water problems. All my water parameters checked out fine but my sensitive rays (flower,tiger) had stopped eating. I backed off the pellet feedings and everything is coming back to normal. I also found the breeding behavior of other rays in the tank will stress the flower and tiger out more than even the female that is trying to be mated. I find rays are very durable animals and will fight off many of the problems people suspect as parasites or a bacterial problem by themselves if given just clean water and whatever is stressing them is removed from the tank and if that can't happen then a good quaratine tank with clean water. Like DW said a little salt is all that is needed instead of a s**tload and I wouldn't raise the temp past 84.
I'm not knocking any other ray keepers as alot of us has had different levels of success with different treatments I just prefer to keep it as simple and natural to start at first and let the rays take care of themselves. Remove the cause of stress and clean water.
Good luck with everything and again best of luck sorting out what advice to use or not.
ps good to see you stop by again dw
We both just started up some big tanks and I found with the extra livestock and feedings that the pellets I was feeding was just passing thru some of the fish causing some water problems. All my water parameters checked out fine but my sensitive rays (flower,tiger) had stopped eating. I backed off the pellet feedings and everything is coming back to normal. I also found the breeding behavior of other rays in the tank will stress the flower and tiger out more than even the female that is trying to be mated. I find rays are very durable animals and will fight off many of the problems people suspect as parasites or a bacterial problem by themselves if given just clean water and whatever is stressing them is removed from the tank and if that can't happen then a good quaratine tank with clean water. Like DW said a little salt is all that is needed instead of a s**tload and I wouldn't raise the temp past 84.
I'm not knocking any other ray keepers as alot of us has had different levels of success with different treatments I just prefer to keep it as simple and natural to start at first and let the rays take care of themselves. Remove the cause of stress and clean water.
Good luck with everything and again best of luck sorting out what advice to use or not.
ps good to see you stop by again dw
sam buckle;4221022; said:
on the old tank i was using 4 sheets of polyfilter changed every 4 weeks
on the new tank i am using 6 sheets changed every 3 weeks
i doesnt seam to get as dirty so fast as its in the sump not an internal filter
tigger68;4221338; said:
over stocked 1000 gal with
1 x asain arowana
5 rays
1 tigrinus
1 lince
1 dat pulcher
10 tinfoil barbs
you must be thinking of my old tank which was over stocked but the new tank is 8ft long x 6ft wide x 3ft deep so i dont think its over stocked
right i managed to get a video up
the water is green due to esha 2000 and they are breathing a bit more than normal due to the high temp when the temp is lower the breath normal
if you watch they have a little like fit this was much worse
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DGRs8f4xP2A
the water is green due to esha 2000 and they are breathing a bit more than normal due to the high temp when the temp is lower the breath normal
if you watch they have a little like fit this was much worse
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DGRs8f4xP2A
