stingray question?

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frostygirl

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Jan 30, 2010
33
0
6
36
WNY
Hello,

I am kind of new to having stingrays, and am just wondering if my stingrays behavior is normal? We drove to Michigan this past tuesday(4 days ago) and picked him up. He looked(and still looks) very healthy in my opinion, and when we got him home he loved his new home and was swimming all night. But on friday, i woke up and he seemed very lazy, and just buried himself and stayed there. Today i woke up and the same thing. Is this an indication of him not doing so well, or is this normal? In any case, i am going to do a partial water change of 20% just to be sure.

p.s. We've been feeding him black worms and testing the water dayly, and the only thing that was a little high was ammonia, and it was only at .50. Pictures are coming soon of the little guy.
 
heres the thing i cant get the pictures on to MFK, i have them on my computer but i can not load them. Any suggestions
 
it is about 2 weeks old, the only other fish in with him are feeder guppies. we did a fast cycle by filling it 60% with tap water and 40 % with an existing tanks water, and had 4 severums in there until we got the stingray to help get the biofiltration going.
 
If there isn't any injuries what so ever on the ray then pictures won't really be necessary in this situation. I'm guessing the ray eats the black worms then? And like stated above how long has this tank been up and running? Tank mates?

How big of a tank is it? What kind of filtration system are you running on it?

Edit: NVM you just answered how long that tank has been running. By adding 40% of the existing water did you also add any existing filtration on the other tank as well? Or is all the filters on this tank new? If so the bio-load of all the fish might be too stressful and too much for the new filters to handle atm.

If there are traces of ammonia like you stated, I would do 30%-40% WC everyday and would probably also add an existing filter with all the beneficial bacteria present. (If not already done).
 
Any ammonia is bad, you need to keep that reading as close to zero as possible by changing water. You did check nitrIte, right?

Rays tend to hide when they're unnerved so you may also want to keep lighting to a minimum for a few days while he settles in - put blankets over the tank, perhaps.

Tank water doesn't hold much of the beneficial bacteria so it's not surprising the tank is going through a bit of a cycle, especially after adding a ray. If this is the 125 you have filtered by a 405 (just guessing from a few other posts), you'll need more filtration on it sooner rather than later.

Did he come from AmazonStingrays? If so, I'd expect earthworms would be accepted too.
 
I just finished up with a 20-30% water change and here are the results...Ammonia, (before .25-.50)(after 0). Nitrite, (before and after 0). Nitrate, (before and after 0). PH (before 6.0)(After 7.0). The ph out of the tap is so high, it doesnt even read on the card. Which is why I can only do such a small water change at a time(have to love Buffalo).

The tank is the 125 gallon filtered by the fluval 405 for now. Waiting on the next paycheck to get another. When we first filled the tank we took one of our filters off our 75 gallon tank and let both of them filter for a few days to increase the biofiltration, but now is back on the other tank. I just turned off his overhead light and he is back to being very active for the time being. No there isnt any cuts or scratches on him. And yes we got him from amazonstingrays. Very nice guy selling very nice rays and earthworms are accepted as well, just having a hard time finding a place who sells them during this time of the year.
 
Rays are a very hardy fish. I even found them to be able to tolerate a certain level of ammonia in the tank. (From my own experience). Your tank is not cycled yet as you have traces of ammonia still, and you also have 0 nitrate. A cycled tank should never have any traces of nitrite/ammonia but should have nitrate present.

At this time I would suggest adding an existing filter to the tank, or keep up your WC and keep an eye on the parameters until everything get calmer.

Best of luck!
 
sounds like you dont rely know how the nitrogen cycle works. you should have kept a seasoned filter on the ray tank.

here is a good quick read to get the idea http://www.fishlore.com/NitrogenCycle.htm

im sure there is a sticky for uploading pics on this site somewhere.

pat is a great guy!! glad u found some good rays!
 
For earthworms you may wanna just order in bulk online, somewhere like UncleJims: http://www.unclejimswormfarm.com/or...ypage=flypage.tpl&product_id=10&category_id=3

There may be better places - and my experience has been that you don't get 2000 worms when you order 2000 but with luck you'll be able to get the ray eating frozen raw shrimp or smelt within a few weeks. You could always try a little raw shrimp though - one of my rays from Pat took shrimp immediately, another took it after 2 weeks but the third ray took more work (but now devours shrimp like the others).

If you go the bulk worm route you'll be able to keep the worms alive easily enough by feeding food scraps (banana and cucumber skins are a huge hit with my worms) and giving them moist shredded newspaper (black and white only not color).


Clearly first priority is getting that tank cycle finished as quickly as possible - move some of the media from the other filter to this one if possible and test ammonia and nitrite daily.
 
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