purchased motoro...film spot on body question

[arowfan]

Hey All,
I just purchased a 6-7 in round motoro from a lfs...ray looked great at store, underneath looked healthy and just looked perfect. Brought it home and notice a type of film on its body-kinda hard to notice at first, but after a careful inspection I noticed it...so my question is what is it, and should I be concerned? The owner who I know, got it 2 days ago and had it on blackworms...
any thoughts?

 

[sharp tooth]

it will be the rays slime coat, they lightly shed it now and then. if it gets really bad then it could be a problem.

have you checked your water to be on the safe side? what do you have for substrate?

 

[arowfan]

ph was a little low like 6.8-7.0-doing a water change in a day-just want the ray to get use to the water for a day or two...I know the water it should be 7.0+; at the store, the other ray in the tank had that slime coat I guess you could say, but a very bad case of it...mine looks great except for 2 minor spots
and as for substrate-you mean whats inside my filters? He's in my 150 gal tank which has a fluval 405, 205, 70gal powerhead with a filter on it, and whisper 100 gal air pump connected to 2 air filter boxes with carbon and foam...in the fluvals I have carbon, biomax and that sponge media...

 

[sharp tooth]

by substrate im ment, sand, gravel or bare bottom just incase it was irritating the ray.

ive never been a fan of useing carbon long term with rays only to remove stuff from the water then get rid of the carbon. ph should be fine just allow the ray time to adjust to your ph and keep it at that. dont try to match the ph of the shop.

whats your ammonia, nitrite and nitrate like? and how often and how large of waterchanges do you do?

rays like there water perfect so more waterchanges are a good thing. i do 40% every 2 days at the moment.

the way your talking about the other ray in the shop sounds like it could be fungus related or ammonia burn or something along those lines.

adding a small amount of salt and keeping up the water quality will sort that out.

 

[arowfan]

oh my bad! I have gravel (now you know my filtration though lol) my nitrites and amonia are nearly perfect, I do add salt to my water every water change, and I do a water change every week, if I have the time I do it twice a week-about 25% water change if I just recently did one, and about a 30-35% change if Its been a weeks time since the last...and I feed every 2days just about
thanks man

 

[sharp tooth]

well now the ray is there ide step it up to atleast 40% twice aweek.

whats your gravel like? rays dont want to be on large rough gravel, they can get away with very small round pea gravel fine but other then that it really wants to be sand or bare bottom.

the ray wants feeding atleast every day maybe twice aday to get the weight onit. once its nice and fat you can lean off the food but ide still be feeding atleast once aday.

rays need more attention then just about any other fish. keeping there tank perfect is essential. they are fantastic fish and very rewarding to keep they are worth the extra effort.

 

[arowfan]

thanks for the info! my little guy is truley a beautiful creature! will do on the food, I'm gonna try cutting up some small pieces of raw shrimp when I get home...I know they were feeding it blackworms-but I've read that shrimp should do as well right? at least for now...

 

[sharp tooth]

do alittle more reserch matey and youll find quite alot of info.
there are loads of threads on here will loads about how to care for rays. theres loads of foods you can feed, try to use a good selection and not get stuck on one or 2 things.