how to acclimatise rays to hard water?

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J

jdem

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Jun 22, 2007
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the jungle
i am buying a schroederi from my lfs and their water is 6.5 but they have said that they will raise the ph to about 7.2 gradually but my tap water is about 8.
what is the best way to acclimatise the ray to my water?
i know that the process will take about a week and was wondering what the best way to go about is is?
i am planning to house it in an 80ltr rubbermaid for the duration of the acclimatisation. the way i was planning to go about the process is filling it with ro water then adding tank water until the ph is 7.2 then slowly adding more and more tank water every day until an equilibrium is reached and the ray is used to my ph8 hard water. is this the correct thing to do or have i got the wrong end of the stick?

i have never kept a ray before and any help here would be hugely appreciated.
 
Search constant drip and you will see how to do this. It involves airline tubing and knots. Good luck!
 
will the consistant drip work slow enough for such a huge change though? would i not need to do the acclimatisation much slower. as i understood, a ray cannot be subjected to more than about 0.1 change a day especially as the change will be from 6.5 to seven overall...
 
My rays were in low 6.0 ph water.
I acclimated to 7.8. Using the slow drip method. It took about 2-3 hors to get the water about the same/.
 
Flower rays I don't believe are as hardy.. but just to give you an idea..

We would 'squirt and dump' rays straight from Peru water (6.8-7.2) to our hard water here (7.8-8.2), and never had a problem with Motoros, any Motoro variants, Castexi and Antenna rays..

I would never suggest it or condone it, especially for a short trip home.. but I have noticed rays are incredibely hardy. The only ones we ever lost were already DOA in the bag coming from Peru.
 
get the water flowing and then tie a knott in the tubing to restrict the flow accordingly. Some people drip for 2-3- or even 4 days so if slow is what you want tie a knott like I said in the first post. Good luck!
 
It can be done with quite a number of species. But, others may have a difficult time due to conditions they've evolved in. A physiological principal to keep in mind, before experimenting, is that changes in pH will affect how a fish's system produces hormones, amino acids, and regulates osmotic processes. Changes in pH will also, in turn, affect how a fish assimilates nutrients, enters spawning conditions, and maintains its immune systems.
 
i think leaving a ray in a polybox for a extra 2-4hrs is more stressfull for the ray

i just dump 2 or 3 pan full of water into the poly box leave it for 10mins then put the ray in the tank never had a problem

if the ray is in a ph of say 6.2 and you wont to put it in a tank with a ph of 8.2 then it needs to be done slow and the drip method wont work as this needs to be done over 1-2 weeks

lower the tank from 8.2down to 7.2 then let it build up over 2 weeks try not to increase the ph more than 0.5 per day
 
I acclimated both of mine it about 2 hours. THey were in 6.2-6.4 and my tank is about 7.8. Both ate as soon as put into tank. I kept adding water to the existing water until ph was the same as my tank.
 
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