Stingrays breathing heavily

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stingray keeper

stingray keeper

Peacock Bass
MFK Member
Jan 4, 2013
1,116
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Canada
I live in a home with well water in which is softened by a home water softener. Even after softening the water is in high 600PPM. Knowing that using home water softener produced water for aquariums is not recomended i use RO/DI and add back the Trace elements + GH/KH ect. I prepare my water from scratch in resevoir and my water changes are done by drip system all automatic; about 25-30 gpd. 300 gal tank. A couple of months ago i ended up incapable of taking care of this system and it seems as though my tank was fed pure RO/DI water for at least 2 weeks. Once i was back in shape enough to operate the system i realized this and acted immediately getting my water back in order. My bioload being heavy seemed to have very quickly stripped all KH from the tank thus leaving the fish in not so suitable water conditions. When i checked at the time my GH and KH were near zero. I noticed the Henlei's breathing heavy of course as they werent getting near what they needed. I felt horrible but all this was not within my control. I got the water back in order as quikely as possible without stressing them too much but now they are still breathing fairly heavy. Any of you guys ever have experience with this or do you know if this heavy breathing will subside or is it permanent? I have done lots of reading on the effects of using pure water on fish over a period of time but havent found info on whether this will go away or not. Any input is greatly appreciated. Please dont judge. I feel horrible that this took place and couldnt avoid this outcome. Other than that the fish are great. They are active and are eating very well.
 
Pure RO water is acceptable-just not preferred. In fact it has been known to do a RO switch over to stimulate the breeding cycle. It has been theorized that this replicates the change found during the rainy season. I wonder if something else is causing the heavy breathing.
 
What happened with your pH when this happened? It most certainly dropped pretty low and your biological shut down. Test all water params for a while to make sure you didnt affect your bacteria too much. My rays were breathing heavy for a few days after my pH crash, but now all back to normal and eating like pigs.

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Thanks for the input Energy. I have mulled everything over. It is not Oxygen deprevation for sure. All water params are in perfect check.
 
My PH did drop a bit to the lowest was 6.2 or 6.4. Not that bad. Yours are not breathing heavy anymore? You think it could be from PH stress?
 
I don't but I don't understand how the pH was only 6.2ish after 2 weeks of pure RO. By that time I would've assumed there was zero KH left and the pH was no longer measurable with a test kit.
 
I did come up in the low 6 range but its always in the mid 6 rang. now its around neutral. Unless it was giving false readings. Its an API test kit.
 
PeteLockwood said:
If you (try to) measure the pH of RO water with a test kit, the number you get will be meaningless.
Click to expand...

How do you figure that ? ro water should be 6 or nutral granted there are no minerals to buffer or keep the ph stable but you can measure 6 ph easily

Did the heavy breathing start before or after you got it back the way it was ?
 
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