Help! 5" Motoro Stingray upside down! Iradic behavior!! Help!

[knobhill]

Thanks Ernesto & To All of you for caring...You have all my gratitude.
So far, she seems to be doing much better. (hooray) She is resting a bit more w/her pals in the tank (like her usual self), and not flailing about anymore.

I took the advice of my husband (& All of you!) and did the 4 capfuls of Prime. I will be testing water in an hour, hopefully it will look much better. As, I did the test, one hour after the water change, and it still read the same 3.0 ammonia (harmful). So Im crossing fingers for a quick turn around on the water quality...but so far, i think she's made it through the worst!

Thankyou & i'll keep you all posted.


Mrs.K

 

[hereticlosmorte]

just read through this, harrowing.
glad to hear she's less stressed now.

 

[johno27]

Don't be too alarmed if it still tests for ammonia after the prime. Prime detoxifies ammonia it doesn't remove it. So it still may show up on the test

Glad to hear she is looking better

 

[ballinouttacntrol]

Don't be too alarmed if it still tests for ammonia after the prime. Prime detoxifies ammonia it doesn't remove it. So it still may show up on the test

Glad to hear she is looking better

good call out. You or your husband will have to do multiple water changes to take care of that.

glad to hear the future is looking brighter

 

[Mikeyy]

Glad to hear everything worked out

 

[evbal]

Good to hear, keep update.

 

[Just Toby]

You now need to get the filter back to stable.

It worries me if anyone is using RO water without re-mineralising it as it would be totally unstable.

Keep up the water testing and please let us know the setup - external filter or sump and what sort of media etc...

I am sure with a few little changes all will be fine.

Good lesson, I am going to show my wife how to do an emergency water change.

 

[sea7ray]

Hi Knobhill/Mrs Knobhill,
just wanted to reiterate "just Toby"s message. for ammonia to spike like that you must have had some sort of bacterial crash in your filter system. Without that population getting back up and stable you have the risk of more ammonia spikes and more risk to the ray. I suggest if you have another tank with a filter grab some of the sponges from that and squeeze it into the ray tank...if it is a bacterial crash that should aid the repopulation

 

[jeffers]

I'm glad to hear your ray is doing better and you found the most likely cause. I read this thread for the first time now and am seriously amazed at the replies. I am really glad you didnt listen to all of the suggestions given to you and i also hope you learn the value of giving us all the information first. Like water params, what type water you use, what you treat the water with, what the ray is doing, and things like that. It is also very important to look at who is giving the suggestions to know who knows what they are talking about and who is just saying things to get posts up.

At this point there is nothing really you can do. Looks like the ray will die. It's hard to take care of that small of a stingray. Don't say you water is perfect b/c no has perfect water. Do a full test on your water. If you don't have all the testers then take your water to the LFS. It's something wrong with your water. Maybe something is stressing her you but it's most likely your water. Good luck and let us know what your water reads.

really nothing you can do the ray is dead. wow. not a fan of this post you should never give up hope especially when we discovered there was something you could do. on a side not he did say test the water again

I wish I could help but the only thing that comes to mind are possible gill flukes since water parameters are good and tankmates are fine. Maybe the parasites affected the small ray first?

Just a wild guess

I hope she comes around for you good luck man

gill flukes? off of the info she just posted you automatically think gill flukes without asking more questions? that is one very wild guess and prolly kept to yourself till you found out more.

maybe u did too much of a water change. at this point don't be surprised if it dies. small stingrays like that are fragile anyways. good luck!

to much of a water change??? And again dont be surprised if it dies. whats up with that? yeah there is a chance but damn, come on this post is clearly not helping.

is her bottom red? check for ammonia...imo the temp should be lower, although i don't think this caused it...

what was she eating, when was the last time she ate? If her poo was white and stringy more than likely parasite.

also how much of a water change did you do?

alright this is starting to be helpfull

Hi All, the fact that you did a water change may have caused this. Obviously you checked the obvious nitrates etc however if the waters direct from the tap do you know if your local water authority uses Chloriamine or any antibacterial additive? They'll always test for human consumption but that doesnt mean its safe to live in for rays (the biology is quite different).
Oh and someone said something about swim bladder im fairly certain that rays dont have one.
Hope the rays OK but i would ring up your water company and check their addatives

she started doing it right before the waterchange this should be telling you something but in a way helpfull

i had the same problem with a datnoid, when doing water changes try to fill your tank away from your fish some times the current of new water can basically shock them all you can do is let them fight it out if they breathing really hard probably wont make it just watch it slow down unfortunately...!

unless your wc are a way off temp, ph, and other levels this should not happen.

Isn't RO water a low pH? Too much will crash the pH levels. I recommend just using tap water + Prime. No need to add Novaqua too. Good luck. Whenever I hear of a ray being upside down, it normally means death curl will soon follow.

i have seen a ray do this before. IMO this is another case of ammonia.

The ray i saw doing this was a friends of mine, and there was old food stuck in the inlet of one if his filters, and lots of it. Caused an ammonia spike.

His ray was banging around and kept flipping over. It died, before he found out the problem. GL

Pure RO is neutral pH but with zero buffering capacity - the pH of pure RO will very likely fall through the floor almost immediately. Probably also makes osmoregulation more difficult but I'm not a biologist so this is just a guess.

I'd start replacing the tank's water with regular tap water stat, maybe 10% at a time initially. Why are you using RO?

finally people i would start listening to! It takes a while before everyone has a chance to read and post but wow. i didnt even pull all of the posts back up but am just surprised.

Now im not mad at the people trying to help cause thats just what you were trying to do. But if you dont know then dont throw out crazy ideas. ask for more information so you can figure it out. You couldve had this poster treating the tank with crazy chems and stressing things out even more.

Ask questions, I was amazed at what i was reading and i see more and more of this. Im not sayen i give the best advice but when i read through the forum. I know who i would listen to and who shouldnt be posting on the topic though.

And i know if im asking for help and people are just telling me my ray is going to die im not going to be too happy. But when people are at least giving me hope and wishing me luck that keeps my spirits up and i will less likely screw things up. Wish people luck even if the ray is right next to dead because these are our pets that we care about and when one dies it sucks.

Now i do want to say sorry for going off topic and ranting but i was pretty amazed at this thread and others like it.

 

[johno27]

Yah that was my bad I took the "water is perfect" as an ammonia and nitrite reading of 0 so i thought that was already ruled out

At least I know when i am taking a wild guess

I just didn't want the only help she had to be "yup it is going to die"