Hey everyone. I've been a fish keeper for many years. My female motoro is about 1 year old and has been healthy an active ever since about 5 days ago. I noticed she wasn't eating all of her massivore pellets that she usually does. Over a couple of days, she slowed down to the point where she has not eaten in the past two days, which is very unusual for her. I have 2 canister filters and a big HOB and she's the only inhabitant of the tank, 90G. I have a coarse sand substrate with only a couple small round rocks. It appears some of the sand is sticking to her and it seems she has more of a slime coat now. I noticed a white area between her eyes but I thought it was from rubbing on one of the filter outputs when she rides the current. I do have some Proform-C and liquid Prazi but I hate to just treat if I don't know what the problem is. She's obviously not herself; hanging on the bottom and not moving around much at all. Weekly water changes etc. Any help is appreciated
Sick Motoro
- Thread starter MnKoi
- Start date
In addition to Gumby79's questions have you checked to see if the underside of her disk is pink/reddish? Has there been any changes to the tank recently?
Also how big is she, a 90G for a 1 year old female sounds awfully small, if she is outgrowing it the stress from being in such a confined space might be the cause.
Might want to try some nightcrawlers on her, might atleast get her eating for you.
Also how big is she, a 90G for a 1 year old female sounds awfully small, if she is outgrowing it the stress from being in such a confined space might be the cause.
Might want to try some nightcrawlers on her, might atleast get her eating for you.
My guess is your nitrates are through the roof and your ph has dropped very low.
1 good size ray in a 90 gal would need about 25% waterchange every other day
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1 good size ray in a 90 gal would need about 25% waterchange every other day
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I agree check your PH it most likely crashed. Then do several small water changes 25% or so over the next 2-3 days to gradually bring it back to tap water level. Try to keep things as stress free as possible and leave the lights off.
Gents, thanks for your replys. There has been no changes to the tank, filters or substrate for months. PH is stable, ammonia is non existent, nitrIte reading was less than .3...nitrAtes were at 80. I never thought to check this because I do 35% changes every 5-6 days and I've never had an issue. I asked my girlfriend if she had noticed anything odd and she told me that she has fed the ray and she didn't seem as interested. Essentially, she got fed twice the normal amount of food this past 7 days due to some miscommunication between my girlfriend and I. I'm sure this caused the hardness to get used up and the PH crashed, followed by the nitrIte spike.
I tried to look under her disc but she didn't move around too much for me to see. I can see the sand substrate clinging in string like clusters too her which I hope is just excess slime coat production. I changed 25% yesterday and about 30% today. I also added Prime to both changes...although I don't want to use this thread to debate if Prime actually can reduce nitrAtes at all. The lights are off and she is resting. I can't think of much else to do at this point unless anyone else has another suggestion.
I tried to look under her disc but she didn't move around too much for me to see. I can see the sand substrate clinging in string like clusters too her which I hope is just excess slime coat production. I changed 25% yesterday and about 30% today. I also added Prime to both changes...although I don't want to use this thread to debate if Prime actually can reduce nitrAtes at all. The lights are off and she is resting. I can't think of much else to do at this point unless anyone else has another suggestion.
Update - her underside is slightly red/pink, which is to be expected due to the high nitrAtes. I completed another 25% water change as well. I did just see that some of her fecal matter has a white coating around it. It looks like a fat nightcrawler but very short and has a white shell, or translucent white casing in spots. I'm not sure if this is related or not but what do you think about a Prazi treatment? I've never needed it but I do have it on hand. I'm not sure if that would add to the stress or not.
I think the nitrites you are seeing are the result of a ph crash and ammonia spike and that is likeky the cause of your issues. although 80 nitrate is not ideal don't think it would have this kind of effect on your ray. You could add some salt to the tank if you want since that will make the nitrite less toxic
I would not treat with anything. But if you really want to prazi the tank wait until she is back to normal
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I would not treat with anything. But if you really want to prazi the tank wait until she is back to normal
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The nitrIte reading was too low to even read. The scale doesn't have a zero but if it did, it would have been there. I have enough static bio-media to filter a tank nearly 4 times that size. I have never had any ammonia reading in the tank. I use a combination of static K-1 along with ceramic rings in two separate canister filters and one large HOB. I too have never seen nitrAte have this effect on a fish, which is why I'm still thinking it could be an internal parasite.