big problem with tap water readings!!!!!

  • We are currently upgrading MFK. thanks! -neo
Alot of people say Rays are sensitive to nitrates, because they try to treat Rays like other fish..

Most Rays are put in undersized tank, fed alot, and not enough water changes.. They have a huge bio-load, which is more concentrated in less water volume.. It only takes a few feedings in a small tank to get your Nitrates above 200ppm..

40ppm-80ppm should be ok.. You will hear mixed opinions. Long-term even trace amounts can cause stress, to all fish, not just rays.. But thats usually 100ppm+

Someone saying 10ppm or less is ideal, I would like to see. Unless they are doing multiple water changes daily, or have a drip system, its near impossible to get your nitrates that low.

I also hear some people with high nitrates in the tap use detoxifiers like Prime to keep the nitrates neutralized when they come out of the tap.

I wouldn't mess with RO/DI unless your very dedicated and have the time and money.. The RO tends to have less conductivity and nutrients, making for a lower alkalinity and less stable water. You will need to add something to buffer the alkalinity and hold the pH stable. If not, the large amounts of waste that rays release will crash your pH really quick. I wouldn't be surprised if your LFS has little clue to what they are doing, and the poor ray is on a pH rollercoaster..
 
cheers for your help guys, its appreciated. i got a thing that you add to the tap water line called a nitragon that only cost £25 and gets rid of all the nitrates and is rechargable in salt water anyway just to be on the safe side. when i was in the shop i looked in a ray book and it said that in tests, the rays were not immediately affected by nitrates until 400ppm so i dont know why all the websites that i have seen say that water changes should be done at 10ppm. ah well at least with this nitragon thing i'll have longer between needing to do water changes and at £25 you cant really go wrong.
only problem now is the rays only eating earthworms which is getting expensive as theres none left in my garden and the bait shop is expensive. its rejected a sea food buffet of pellets, smelt, prawn and cockles. its quite skinny so i think im gonna wait until its fattened up before i start trying to wean him off earthworms. does anyone with more knowlege than i know what type it is. it was labelled a guyana and the shop didn't know. im pretty sure its a humerosa but possible an orbignyi? cheers again

winston 002.jpg
 
i see you like in the UK as you stated the price in £s

the rays should also eat river shrimp

getting a ray to eat dead food seams to be one of the bigest problems we see on forums

once people feed earth worms it seams everyone has trouble makeing the ray eat anthing else

but you ray is skinny and you can see the dent between the eyes so feed it what it wants for a few months to fatern it up a bit also try blood wormfrozen and live
 
I used to run a LFS that had 100ppm out of the tap and we used Nitragons to reduce this to pretty much zero...if you make a good recharge rig out of an old bucket with a tank connector and use hozelock quick release unions it is not too much of a pain.

I actually run this on the tank from time to time using a fluval 4 to pump water through, I have asked many people if this is a problem and the only bad answer I have had is not to let it run for weeks at a time due to bacterial build up.

You can take a tank at 100 down to near 0 overnight.

Main thing is never to run too much water pressure through as the polymer wool and seals can fail and you do not really want the ion exchange resin in the tank.

Nitrex is a similar ion exchange resin which you put in a filter sock and run in tank then recharge on salt.

Whilst I agree that 40ppm is not too dangerous, it is not a brilliant starting point as you can only add to this. I also PERSONALLY feel that anything over 100ppm is detrimental to all fish, it may not kill them but if it kills sensitive fish it stands to reason and logic that it will make less sensitive ones unhappy.

MBU puffers seem to die above 100 ppm if exposed for say 1 month.
 
Super old thread!

However, it says in Dr. Ross's book that rays can survive nitrate levels above 100ppm and don't show any signs of stress until the levels were hitting 300ppm. Been awhile since I read that, but there's a thread on here somewhere about it that I started.

Everyone pretty much agreed that the talk about nitrate levels are blown out of proportion. Just keep up on the water changes.
 
SpeshulEd;4142754; said:
Super old thread!

However, it says in Dr. Ross's book that rays can survive nitrate levels above 100ppm and don't show any signs of stress until the levels were hitting 300ppm. Been awhile since I read that, but there's a thread on here somewhere about it that I started.

Everyone pretty much agreed that the talk about nitrate levels are blown out of proportion. Just keep up on the water changes.
Click to expand...

There was another thread that said the book is way out of date, Nitrate USED to be thought of as a non problem and we have learnt more since but it seems that the argument will rage of forever, many people run high nitrates and therefore cannot reduce and the fish survive.

If Nitrate grows slowly then fish adapt, if they are dumped in to high then they often die. It seems that experienced Ray keepers seem to be ok with high nitrate and I bow down to their experience. My experiences of many different species of fish is that on the whole, high levels of nitrate are not good in the long term.

If 500 and above kills them, it stands to reason that 250 is not good either, it just might not kill them?

I think I will change my forum name to "Nitrate Soap Box".....sorry to rant on
 
I missed the other thread. Here's the link to mine:
http://www.monsterfishkeepers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=294072

Everyone seemed to agree that as long as you keep up with routine maintenance, things would be ok.

My answer to high nitrates - automatic drip! Doing an 80% water change on my 450g tank every week is a pain. I'm ordering my filters and junk today, hope to have it up and running by next week.
 
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