Marble dying... any tips??

[Chestnut]

Hi,
I have an 8 inch marble motoro that I've had for 5 months in a 240 gallon setup, no tank mates or substrate and 70 gallon sump, Temp 80F. The ray last fed on Wednesday night on earthworms but was off Thursday morning. He was hardly moving very lethargic except for straining to poop the odd time and no interest in feeding (he has not fed since). I checked the water params and the NH3 was very high around 3 ppm on Thursday so I completed some large water changes over 2 days to get the values back down to zero and hoped that he would start to improve. Ammonia and tank params are constant in the ideal range but unfortunately the rays condition has stayed the same / gotten worse and he has been rapidly losing weight, sits in the same spot with little to no movement for long periods of time and ignores live foods. There are no visible symptoms to his skin, fungus or bacterial infections, just skinny and lethargic. Hip bones are now poking out and he doesn't look good.... any last resort options I can try?
Thanks in advance

 

[cigars]

Maybe internal parasite? i would do prazi treatment and see if there is improvement

 

[Chestnut]

Maybe internal parasite? i would do prazi treatment and see if there is improvement

Thanks for the tip- was debating on prazi or salt?

Also note NH3 was .3ppm not 3ppm.

 

[CANAMONSTER]

Prazi asap!!! Prazi is great for making rays hungry and will probably snap him right out of it!! Don't wait add prazi now.

 

[Chestnut]

Prazi asap!!! Prazi is great for making rays hungry and will probably snap him right out of it!! Don't wait add prazi now.

Dosed some prazi this morning 10 am, so fingers crossed - but he's still not eating.

 

[CANAMONSTER]

Bet the 4th day he does

 

[Reedmaster16]

Why recommend treating with prazi when the problem appears to be a large ammonia spike most likely from a bio filter crash or not properly cycled tank?

 

[Thatoscarguy]

Hi I'm not much of a ray expert but I'm praying for you

 

[Chestnut]

Hi thanks for the response, the tank / filter has stabilized after some water changes - might have spiked from a combination of lower flow rate on the DC pump and large feedings on the Wednesday. Tested NH3 thursday morning and completed 50% water change, Thus. am, Thur. pm and Friday am. Tank is bare bottom and no tank mates. Water was stable Friday morning but fish hasn't bounced back, lost a lot of weight and has not eaten or been interested in food since Thursday am. I was hopping the clean water would get him back to normal, so I'm nervous and had to move to a plan B.

Right now my feeling is the NH3 damaged something internal or the NH3 stressed him out and some parasite got the better of him.

 

[CANAMONSTER]

Why recommend treating with prazi when the problem appears to be a large ammonia spike most likely from a bio filter crash or not properly cycled tank?

Very right. I didn't see that part.