So what the helll....

[skynoch]

Hey Tim your water is going to be very hard this time of year being that it comes out of the Bow as is mine out of the saskatchewan. I'm pretty sure this had an influence on me losing my 2 flowers last time. I guess we'll find out this time when my new ones come in. I'll probably use 2/3 ro and a 1/3 tap which will bring the hardness down to the preffered level. I have a spare r/o unit if you want to try it before buying one.

 

[csx4236]

Tim was talking to DW and his theory was 1 He has seen this type of problem with rays and it was caused by a bacterial infection. 2 You could have a short in your tank or stray voltage that is causing the rays to get shocked do you have any wires, heater or powerheads in the tank? Check to make sure I have seen this happen on tanks before with voltage.

 

[Gr8KarmaSF]

Interesting theories and thread...



Hope you find the cause.

 

[Brent]

if u think u have stray current in your tank u can get a dvom (volt meter) and dip one end in the water and the other to ground i found a heater causeing this in one of my tanks not to long ago

 

[rudy]

Not stray current so I wil go with the other.

Thanks Mike.

 

[Miles]

pH and Hardness matter b/c if they are wild imports you want to have as little variables as possible. For example, a Motoro ray can live/thrive in hard water but it makes no sense to extract them from very soft water in the wild and put them directly into hard water as additional stress variable following shipping stress.

Motoros come from soft water? Just because it's South America doesn't mean it's all soft water..


Rudy.. What city were your rays exported from?

An experiment for you: Take a 20 gallon, adjust pH to 8.0 and hardness to 20 degrees KH, now add one of your teacups to it, you can drip first if you want, let him be there for a day with good filtration and such and then place him in a second 20 gallon with pH 6.0 and 1 degree KH, lets see how he does! Shouldn't bother him if there is no crash, right?

A sudden increase in pH is much different than a decline in pH..

Uh yeah Rays never swim through varied pH in the wild..

Prazipro is for killing large ectoparasites, gill flukes etc., also for a certain parasitic gut worms. Unless you see parasites on the body or have evidence of internal worms such as when they show themselves out the anus of the ray, there is no benefit to using Prazipro.

I have 2 "teacups" that would have to say that PraziPro makes a huge profound effect on whatever was effecting their digestion issues internally. I've done a controlled test on the 5 I just got, and it's amazing the difference in the 2 that received a 4x dose of Prazi. Perhaps it's not used in proper concentration most of the time because of their unique osmosis system and the way they process fluids in their body.

An effective and usually necessary med is Metro. Metro will combat the NORMALLY present gut parasites found in P. spp. that are able to "take hold" when the ray is presented with excessive stress (shipping).

Metro works good.. I agree. Still needs ingested or heavy doses I would say..

Miles, you are an aggressive person. It is funny to watch you on this board attack people. I am excited that I am now in the ranks of Bogwoodbruce on your list of people to annoy! Sorry I was not totally versed on Rudy's past experiences, next time I see a vague useless thread that says "what the hell, my rays are dieing, why?" I will formulate a theory first and then post, sorry for asking relevant questions!

Thanks.

 

[Miles]

Tim was talking to DW and his theory was 1 He has seen this type of problem with rays and it was caused by a bacterial infection. 2 You could have a short in your tank or stray voltage that is causing the rays to get shocked do you have any wires, heater or powerheads in the tank? Check to make sure I have seen this happen on tanks before with voltage.

Hey Mike what do you guys treat Bacterial Infections with? I used Triple Sulfa recently, and I am excited to say it didn't kill my rays

 

[Miles]

PS.. Rudy you know your pH might go up in the spring and it makes ammonia more toxic.. Blackworms have a heavy bio-load combined with new rays.. soooo..

 

[Nic]

to some of the comments

I'll go with that theory Miles as in the spring is the only time I have ever lost rays so it would make sense
How can I combat it???

use some prime water conditioner and you could/should add some sediment and carbon block prefilters for the pond...

Hey Mike what do you guys treat Bacterial Infections with? I used Triple Sulfa recently, and I am excited to say it didn't kill my rays

i have used maracyn and maracyn 2 with rays... furan2,maracyn plus w/biospheres and i have used something else but cant remember the name...

PS.. Rudy you know your pH might go up in the spring and it makes ammonia more toxic.. Blackworms have a heavy bio-load combined with new rays.. soooo..

i thought black worms did not really affect the bio load of the water???

 

[tank125]

Miles - quote:
I have 2 "teacups" that would have to say that PraziPro makes a huge profound effect on whatever was effecting their digestion issues internally. I've done a controlled test on the 5 I just got, and it's amazing the difference in the 2 that received a 4x dose of Prazi. Perhaps it's not used in proper concentration most of the time because of their unique osmosis system and the way they process fluids in their body.


That is awesome, were you lucky enough to find any parasite carcasses? How was this test laid out? 2 @ 4xdose, other 3 @??? Prazipro is effective on Tapeworms and Gillflukes, and possibly some round worms. I think that your results were just coincidence. The osmoregulation of a ray has nothing to do with Prazi's effect on a worm. Prazi is not a broad spectrum anti-parasitic.


Rudy:

The zipping around the tank all crazy could be pH crash, which you ruled out, right?

Could be Gill Flukes - Now we know it is safe to use Prazipro, you may want to do a preventative treatment of it to rule out Gill Flukes.

Internal bacteria? Are there any other symptoms besides the crazy swimming, which would not be associated with internal bacterial infections. If you feel you need to use something, Oxytetracyclin or Maracyn II SHOULD be safe. Both are effective broad spectrum antibiotics. The concern with them is that they are skin irritants so they migh bother the unprotected belly of the ray. I recently used Maracyn II on a Tigrinus (scaleless) with no ill effects. First I tried Kanamycin Sulfate but that irritated the hell out of him (sulfates in the Kana and sulfites in the Prime).