Close Call and Trouble With Hystrix (Recommendations Accepted)

[jim barry]

Oh mate. Sounds like a nightmare situation for you. I never had this happen. I have had a ray freak and fly around the tank but it settled down again quickly afterwards. Sorry I can't offer any help but I hope your ray pulls through. Best of luck.

 

[Kolossus]

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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The temp was 80...moved up to 82 after the incident, then down bakc to 80 after reading your post. LOL. I will do all test when I get home from work.

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 thought of this and may do it when I isolate her...thanks a mil.

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......

Thanks Al. I'll keep that in mind.

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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Thank you. I will do a full range of test when I get home and will definitely keep up with the changes as long as I can keep her alive.

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.

This is not my only system. I will likely transfer her when I get home. I did not want to do it earlier as I did not want to stress her more. Thanks for the advice. She was actually the queen bee so no one in the tank really messed with her. I didn't bother to test the water last night because I was too busy doing an emergency water change. I fed the tank this morning, hoping she would eat some chopped night crawlers (she usually eats them whole). Everyone ate but her. Its kinna sad. I'll keep you posted.

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...

That's exactly what happened here...except it was a no more than 4-5in female marble that got near her right after I placed food in the tank. It definitely appeared to come out of no where...like a violent reaction to something. her veins were popping out and everything. the situation you just mentioned sounds exactly identical. I've kept rays for years and have never seen anything like this happen to an otherwise completely healthy ray. No warning or anything...just perfect one minute and almost dead the next.

Oh mate. Sounds like a nightmare situation for you. I never had this happen. I have had a ray freak and fly around the tank but it settled down again quickly afterwards. Sorry I can't offer any help but I hope your ray pulls through. Best of luck.

Thank you so much. We'll see what happens. This is a super random occurrence. She'd been nothing but healthy for over a year.

 

[spotfin]

Doesn't really sound like a disease or water quality issue to happen that fast. Any chance of stray voltage?

 

[Kolossus]

Doesn't really sound like a disease or water quality issue to happen that fast. Any chance of stray voltage?

Good question. I doubt it but I guess anything is possible. Definitely perplexing.

 

[keepinfish]

Doing a water test is a great idea, but maybe it was a spike that happened and it will not show on test today. Is she still banging around? I also agree that stress is the likely cause. Could be stress from water (ph, nitrite..etc), could be stress from other rays, maybe from something else? Are the other rays hystrix as well?

 

[Kolossus]

2 marble pups, 1 BD pup, the hystrix, 1 large CT dat, and 4 red spot severums in the growout.

Nitrate almost 40 ppm
Ph 7.6
Ammonia 0 ppm
Nitrite 0 ppm

She's hanging on. But it looks as if a spec of blood is visible on one of her gills, though it looks to be under the skin. She's not curling but kinda takes a deep breath/jerk every once in a while.

I'll post a vid in a sec.


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[Kolossus]

My phone is acting up...can't upload the link. But the URL is below. Right after I took this video, she did what appeared to look like a cough about 4-5 times. She raises up and it literally looks like she's coughing with her mouth open and everything. She's doing that from time to time.

I hesitate to move her because I don't want to stress her out any further. Move her anyway?

http://youtu.be/LunIpoDTc9E


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[Mr. Allgood]

My buddy dropped a flowerhorn in a tank with another fh in the same tank but on the other side of a divider, as soon as the new fish hit the water, the old fish spazzed and died a few minutes later. It was extremely similar to my retic spazzing which is why I assumed a heart attack/stroke scenario. The retic was captive bred 6" and the male that got near her was only 9". There was no physical contact at that time but the male had pinned her down for food a few days prior...

 

[Mr. Allgood]

Sorry you are dealing with this bro. I'm a big softy so I would be way stressed out

 

[FishDog]

Hard call on moving her. If it were me I would move her because something is stressing or irritating her and you will not know if it is fish, ray, or system unless you move her to a new system and isolate her. The move may be stressful but the new environment will be less stressful if that makes sense. I use a tub and scoop the ray up so they never leave the water. That mark could be anything but could be a bite or a sting from the other ray. Does any of the other rays have the skin wore off the tip of their stinger?