Dead female SWC

[stratos]

I had a trio of 6-7 inch rays (pair of SWC and one female BD) in a 180 gallon along with some small silver dollars, a couple small oscars, and a small Asian arowana. I was planning to move the rays to a 650 gallon in the near future. The water parameters are good. I do daily 25% water changes. The rays eat Hikari sinking carnivore. I last fed the rays 12 hours ago and they all ate very well. This morning I woke to find the female SWC looking lethargic on the bottom of tank. No death curl or anything, but I could tell by her colour and body language that she was not feeling well. A couple hours later I see the ray floating vertically in tank. Note protruding belly. I have not experienced this before. I am guessing it had some kind of interal infection? Thoughts?

 

[kno4te]

I’d guess infection/bloat.

 

[jim barry]

Sorry to hear of your loss
Lovely ray
Must have been an infection of some sort but very odd if behaviour didn’t change leading up to the event

 

[deeda]

Sorry for your loss!

 

[tlindsey]

Sorry for your loss.

 

[Red Cichlids]

Sorry to hear about that. Sucks to lose a nice and expensive fish!

As far as the swollen belly, the abdomen will commonly bloat up after death because of the bacteria continuing to break food down in the intestines and starting to work on the internal organs of the fish once it dies. While it might have been bloat, it's not a certain thing.

 

[flyingsaucer owner]

Sorry for your loss, always hurts losing any fish but more so with rays and especially when it’s a mystery death. Are the other rays still behaving normally?

 

[FWSKY]

When you feed the rays do you spread the food around and watch to see who eats and how much? I have had two rays in the past over eat and their belly's got bloated like that and they both died. Both times I accidently dumped to much food in one spot creating a pile of food and the ray jumped on it and ate so much its belly was bloated. Since then I feed smaller amounts at a time and make sure to spread it from one end of the tank to another.