Necropsy results

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jstavis said:
Thanks for the thoughts, everyone. Just a few clarifications:


4) When the first ray died (and before any others really started looking bad) I naively thought that it had swallowed a barb shed off by another ray. In order to confirm this I performed a "necropsy" with a Swiss Army Knife. The findings were as follows: stingrays are full of a substance known as "guts." They are pretty gross. And that is about all I learned. It was nasty and potentially dangerous and I wouldn't advise that anyone do that.

5) The other ray still seems ok. Knock on wood.
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@(4) :ROFL: I can just picture getting myself elbow deep in some perplexing mess like that. !GUTS!+ no anatomical knowledge. LOL.

@(5) glad something worked out well.
 
Here's a quick update. I'll just copy and paste the email I got today from the vet. Most interesting parts are bolded:

"The bacteriology lab has completed the cultures (you should have received those results by e-mail) and I have had a chance to look at the microscope slides of the tissues. There is very little that is abnormal in the tissues with the exception of the gills, which are mildly diseased. I have ordered some special stains be performed on slides of the gills (no extra charge to you) that will help me identify if there are infectious organisms there. I did see a few trematodes (flat worm parasites) in the larger ray only, but I suspect that these were not significant. I am more suspicious of a protozoan parasite.

I will keep you updated as I received the slides, hopefully by Friday."
 
jstavis said:
Since the previous thread ("My rays are all dying") had gotten to seven pages, I figured I'd start a new one.

I just received the preliminary results from the samples I brought to the lab. I've attached the report. I've managed to do a few minutes worth of research, but it turned up more questions than answers. I obviously need to contact the vet to figure out what this all means in practical terms. Also, since the results were marked "preliminary," I'm assuming that more tests are underway.

I'll update you guys when I figure out what this means, but I thought I'd throw it up here just in case someone has dealt with this before.View attachment 867538
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It means that they took a sample from their liver and gills. This was set to grow in a petri dish.

As far as I can see there where little to no growth from the samples.

So prob not what caused yours rays death.

Keep us posted.
 
Gill Flukes?

I've always wondered if lots of us have rays that live with these things then under stressfull conditions they take over and we loose them. Every time mine get sick the weakest dies first, then the next, so on. Maybe these Flukes are responsable for the little "forward/backwards freakout sessions" that a lot of has have seen and described. Normal fish can "flash" against stuff, flat fish can't so they freakout shuffle.

Prazi is supposed to get rid of them but I suspect none of us carry out full treatments, so they are just put in check, the ray recovers enough and continues living with them.

Just some thoughts from someone that has lost more then his fair share of rays.......
 
DB junkie said:
Gill Flukes?

I've always wondered if lots of us have rays that live with these things then under stressfull conditions they take over and we loose them. Every time mine get sick the weakest dies first, then the next, so on. Maybe these Flukes are responsable for the little "forward/backwards freakout sessions" that a lot of has have seen and described. Normal fish can "flash" against stuff, flat fish can't so they freakout shuffle.

Prazi is supposed to get rid of them but I suspect none of us carry out full treatments, so they are just put in check, the ray recovers enough and continues living with them.

Just some thoughts from someone that has lost more then his fair share of rays.......
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Bingo!

i say this is it. i think that fish living under a UV will keep their stress levels lower thus, not letting the gill flukes become a problem.
i talked to a vet when i was having the p14 episode a while back, and the first suspicion was they have gill flukes. I said i treated with prazi pro, and he said you didnt treat long enough. he was recomending a on and off again treatment for like a month +
Like Mark H., David W, and others have said, stress is the biggest contributing factor
 
Majority of all fish deaths can be traced to poor water quality, which in turn causes stress, which makes a fish more vulnerable to disease whether it be bacterial, fungal, viral, or parasitic.
 
Interesting thoughts. I find DB's ideas about parasites to be rather compelling, although I'm certainly not a veterinary expert and I don't think DB is claiming to be one either.

Perhaps I'm wrong on this point, but I find the tendency to attribute problems to "stress" to be frustrating. It strikes me as somewhat similar to antiquated medical theories about humors being out of balance. In fact, what is going on is a series of actual pathological processes. Since we as hobbyists (and veterinarians in many cases as well) lack the tools to determine the specific harmful processes that are occurring, we use "stress" as a sort of blanket term. The problem is that this does not always yield particularly useful information.

(Does any of this make sense? I've been thinking about this for a while, but I'm not sure that I'm A) expressing myself clearly; or B) remotely correct.)

Edit: In any case, should have more info very soon from someone who DOES know what they're talking about. I'm glad that I'm learning something from this. I just wish it would bring my dead rays back.
 
stress drains internal resources & therefore weakens the entire immune system. it may sound like a non-concrete cop out, but it's factual, even in humans. the ensuing decline may come from a variety of opportunistic sources: parasites, bacteria, etc. but IF we and our fish are in top condition we can fight those things off better.
 
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