HELP tea cup floating

[suprakid95]

I'm new to stingrays i bought a tea cup stingray yesturday it seemed to be the healthiest one they had, was swimming around happily in the bag i get home acclimate it for 45 min gradually adding my water in. it seemed to be swimming around pretty happily, in the morning i find it just sitting on the bottom and think no big deal. On the way home from work i pick up some black worms for it and it doesnt even eat one bite. i just went down stairs to check up on it and its swimming/floating at the top of the water breathing. is this normal at all.

ph is 6.9
ammonia is 0 ppm
nitrite is 0 ppm
nitrate is between 0 and .5 ppm

 

[CrAzYNeSs]

Any other tank mates? Do you have enough surface agitation to increase dissolved oxygen in the tank? Did you dechlorinate the water? What is the temperature? More info the better. Keep us posted.

 

[suprakid95]

its a 125 gallon tank, i have an fx5 spraying in the middle up wards for agitation, and a large wand type air stone. the tank has been set up for some time now and tank mates are a few small catfish which are getting moved out today.....or now.

 

[suprakid95]

and i use prime to dechlorinate my water

 

[Zfishies]

u should try hand feeding, this is what i did but mainly cuz i didnt want my eel and stingray competing for food. u place the food on ur palm and put ur hand-in the tank and keep ur hand/palm like a table(if needed to put food inbetween ur fingers) and let the ray come out and he will rest his head/ mouth on ur hand and will slurp up the worms or watever it is... this prob. didnt help but its worth a try...

 

[suprakid95]

should i be worried about him swimming on the top, his body is literally sticking out of the water.

 

[wheresalbany]

how old are your test kits? I've heard of rays doing this when the ammonia is high.

 

[suprakid95]

they arnt very old i have 4 tanks and go threw test kits often.

 

[suprakid95]

is it possible the stingray is afraid of the catfish and is swimming around the top to avoid them?

 

[koltsixx]

I don't know if it's usual but I had a tea cup float at the surface just above my powerheads just getting pushed around by the current and he was fine. Well at least for a year until my Apurensis decided he'd like to find out what a teacup tastes like and ate him whole. Lost both fish haven't kept a stingray or Apurensis since. Cleaning the tank was just too stressful especially since I had sand alway's kept running into shed stingers. As for the eating stingrays can take awhile to become comfortable enough to eat. Are you noticing any other signs he might be stressed or sick. Like rapid gill movement, disk curl, protruding pelvic bones or skinny tail?