Skinny Ray help

[festaedan]

I find all this a little hard to stomach! It almost seems like selling rays in this way is acceptable, surely there has to be more to this than making a living from these amazing fish. Even if the ray is feeding which in most cases they probably aren't! goldfish in 90% of cases carry external parasites such as Trichodina, Gyrodactylus in some capacity, intestinal tapeworms are also common. Getting new imports to accept frozen/ dry foods before offering them for sale is a tedious job at best, you can see why they are sold in this manner, no work involved...easy money basically.
It beggars belief that anyone would buy rays that are sold in this way, these are highly intelligent fish that require a certain level of skill and experience from the aquarist to give them what they need to ensure they live as happily a life as possible, a life that can easily exceed 25 years.

I feel sorry for the fish here "not" the buyer, if anyone is silly enough to purchase any ray under these circumstances then they must be prepared to suffer the consequences .

I agree, I generally stay away from wild caught rays unless its from a source I 100% trust. I've had my fair share of wild caught rays that eat nothing but live fish and black worms.
Prazi pro is a good start. Wild caught rays are usually teeming with parasites and if they come in fine, they'll probably get something if they get fed goldfish.
Good luck!

 

[ShadowStryder]

There is nothing wrong with wild caught rays. It just takes patients, and clean well kept QT systems. I wish there were more available in the states. There are few vendors who ocassionally bring a couple in. (Flowers, retics, marbles and recently some Hens)
Problem is most vendors dont want to suffer the losses of importing wild caught rays. So they would rather pass the risk off to the hobbyist.

As for as John, I dont really condone how he does his ray importing but have heard great things and horror stories. My large characins all came from him. But sometimes you have to take a risk to get something you really want. As long as you know the risk up front.

 

[Jesseliu13]

so i added prazipro yesterday. Im gonna say that this little guy either wasnt gone from the wild long, or john's goldfish may have bad parasites. pretty nasty tapeworm came out... and it now is eating earthworms again.. but its extremely picky. wont eat silversides either. very bothersome ray lol

 

[UnstoppableJayD]

so i added prazipro yesterday. Im gonna say that this little guy either wasnt gone from the wild long, or john's goldfish may have bad parasites. pretty nasty tapeworm came out... and it now is eating earthworms again.. but its extremely picky. wont eat silversides either. very bothersome ray lol

now that the parasite is gone... it should learn to take other foods... just get him fat first

 

[Jesseliu13]

now that the parasite is gone... it should learn to take other foods... just get him fat first

i fed him about 2 canadians earth worms for an appetizer this morning. just about 5 minutes ago i cut up half a tilapia fillet and some silversides and cut them up too. no avail. didnt touch any of it. and the female maybe ate like half of it. male is definitely a picky one. gonna just get it fat first then just start mixing foods to seafoods again instead of wasting all my good frozen seafood.