Help:: Retic Emergency

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G

Gar88

Plecostomus
MFK Member
Dec 1, 2011
1,901
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53
INDIA
Found him upside down and had difficulty staying straight.
Tank size is 46G wide. Tank mates are two 5" Motoros and a 7" fire eel. I've had the ray for nearly two months now.
WC is weekly 50% or sometimes twice a week. Been feeding shrimps and tilapia. Filtration is a Eheim 2217 and a top filter with a DIY box to hold more bio media.
Conducting a test and a WC as we speak. Kindly look at him and guide me plz.
View attachment 920779View attachment 920780

Thanks...
 
UnstoppableJayD said:
Thats a lot of rays in a 46g tank. If your water checks out, has he been eating properly? retics can be tough to feed
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He didn't make it :(
He was feeding fine. Never had problem with him eating. But would eat less than the motoros.

Here are the teat results. The ph which has dropped drastically to 6. The normal ph ova here outta the taps are 7.6. The nitrate is at 40. This is always the case before a WC which was due for tmrw. If I take it to a week I get this level. If I do it twice a week then nitrates are at 10.
Nitrite 0 and Ammonia is at .02 ppm.

I guess ammonia did it :(
Feel like kicking myself as I didn't conduct a test in this midweek... Last time I checked during WC which was on Sunday the levels were at 0.
 
redtailcatfish88 said:
Sounds like to me you had a Ph crash. Plus you are not cycled.
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The tank is a matured one with Eheim and the top filter bio media too.
Not sure how ph would crash without me doing anything drastic. This has never happened to me before in any of my setups. Be it the tanks or the pond where huge driftwoods are there.
 
Any hint of amonnia is a sign of a non cycled tank. Or super over stocking so your Bio can't keep up and convert it to nitrite then nitrates. Could be a number of things. Sorry for your loss.
 
To many high ammonia producing fish in too small a tank.. tbh. That's ALOT of hardcore producing fish in a small tank... I had to do Wcs every other day of 50% when I had the equivalent to keep my PH stable... even if the tank is well established ( this one had to be otherwise all your water perameters would be wonky.) for lack of better explination the byproduct of such a high bio-load on a small water volume will suddenly "crash" a tank much like old tank syndrome does. Even with "regular water" perameters I've found the higher the over-all bio-load the more often water changes are needed on the smaller the volume. period... I had this type of issue in the past where I was monitoring my TDS to keep up with my tanks perameters because my Ph ect would start crashing long before my nitrates got above 20ppm ( the usual gage we use to track such things)

also ime retics are very delicate the first 1yr and easy outcompeted for food by brutes like motoros so the ray may have been under constant stress... I found my retics once settled in tolerate quite abit of fluxuations in the water as a general rule. ( ie ammonia or nitrite spikes ect as long as they are not "crashes")

I'm sorry for your loss. These are the random crap things that happen to us that help us learn to be better care-takers.
 
Thanks a lot Amy. I sure am gonna fold up ma sleeves more to take care of these lil guys I have. A valuable lesson learnt and I appreciate it much the way you have put it fwd. thanks a ton.
 
Rays_4life said:
Stress from tankmates ....to small of a tank for even the motoro let alone the others all together

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The tank Dimensions are 30"x24"x15". You think this cannot hold these guys until they get to 7" Dia and I shift them to the main tank 360G? Of course will be doing some rigorous water changes.
The fire eel is moving out and two Motoros are the only ones in there.
 
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