Well she is still alive, though still in the pond. I'm setting up a 55 right now to move her into so I can keep better track of what, if anything, she's eating. I know the tank is too small, but it is just until she starts eating, and then she can go back into either the 330 gallon pond or 200 gallon tank. Will post pics when she's in the new tank.
Force feeding
- Thread starter African_Fever
- Start date
Thinkin movin her again would be too much stress? Maybe the big pond is good for her?
Just free feed some live food (ghost shrimp?) and keep an eye on the water quality.. the larger water volume will allow you to offer more foods for longer periods without risk of ammonia spikes.. try to find the smallest live worms possible and toss em in..
Just free feed some live food (ghost shrimp?) and keep an eye on the water quality.. the larger water volume will allow you to offer more foods for longer periods without risk of ammonia spikes.. try to find the smallest live worms possible and toss em in..
As soon as I started filling buckets from the pond to use for her new home she swam to the top, curled, and flipped over like before (this is the first time I've seen her do this since force-feeding the other day). I took her out into one of the shipping boxes she came in, and force-fed her more bloodworms. I'm sure I got some in this time, as she didn't spit out nearly as many as I put in. She is sitting in the 55 now, in the dark.
One of my concerns with leaving her in the big pond is that there's no way for me to tell exactly how much she's eating, if she's even eating anything. I'm thinking that having food right on top of her will be better, even if I can't have it in for too long (except for ghost shrimp and some tiny livebearers which I'll be able to leave in). With her being as weak as she is I'm worried she won't have the strength to go looking for food, and will only eat if it's literally right under her nose.
I think I'm going to look for some redworms and try those with the chopped up earthworms and just hope for the best.
Does anyone recommend any ammonia remover/neutralizer besides AmGuard or Prime, and which of these two actually works better?
I've attached a pic of the force-feeding syringe. It's just a syringe that came with the ink refill kit for my inkjet printer - I have a couple extra syringes kicking around because I've been filling up my inkjet myself for a while. Airline tubing was actually a perfect fit, so after thawing bloodworms in a small container with as little water as possible, I sucked them up. You will need some water to allow them to 'flow' into the syringe, but not very much. She started 'gasping' and trying to spit out the tubing as soon as it was in her mouth, which actually made things easier because it really opened up her entire throat making it easier to get the tubing in. Once it was in far enough, I gently squeezed to pump out the bloodworms and then pulled out the tubing.
One of my concerns with leaving her in the big pond is that there's no way for me to tell exactly how much she's eating, if she's even eating anything. I'm thinking that having food right on top of her will be better, even if I can't have it in for too long (except for ghost shrimp and some tiny livebearers which I'll be able to leave in). With her being as weak as she is I'm worried she won't have the strength to go looking for food, and will only eat if it's literally right under her nose.
I think I'm going to look for some redworms and try those with the chopped up earthworms and just hope for the best.
Does anyone recommend any ammonia remover/neutralizer besides AmGuard or Prime, and which of these two actually works better?
I've attached a pic of the force-feeding syringe. It's just a syringe that came with the ink refill kit for my inkjet printer - I have a couple extra syringes kicking around because I've been filling up my inkjet myself for a while. Airline tubing was actually a perfect fit, so after thawing bloodworms in a small container with as little water as possible, I sucked them up. You will need some water to allow them to 'flow' into the syringe, but not very much. She started 'gasping' and trying to spit out the tubing as soon as it was in her mouth, which actually made things easier because it really opened up her entire throat making it easier to get the tubing in. Once it was in far enough, I gently squeezed to pump out the bloodworms and then pulled out the tubing.
hope all works out and she makes it... can somebody send you live black worms??? are ghost shrimps available? if they are atleast let them eat some good pellets before feeding them so she gets more nutrition...
I picked up some ghost shrimp and have a couple in with her for now, and will be putting in some pellets for the shrimp to eat until she (hopefully) eats them. There's one store left that carries blackworms 3 hours away and I would've had some yesterday, but the ones they got in were all but dead and wouldn't have done me any good anyways. rudy is able to ship me some when they get them in, but unfortunately that isn't all the time, and they're not always very good.
Unfortunately she died the other day. I don't honestly think there was anything that could've saved this ray; she was just skin and bones, and that with the stress of shipping is I'm sure what did her in. Too bad, because she was awesome.
