Swimming into the Glass?

[Gshock]

So I just got another ray into a q-tank. Powerheads and lights are off, only the filter is running. At first, everything seemed fine, just laying on the bottom, flat disc, no curling, started swimming around 5 minutes later, just normal ray behaviour. Now its crawling up the panes of glass which is normal too, but then it starts swimming completely off the glass horizontally, slowly, until it reaches the other side of the tank, and will gently bump into the glass with its nose, to which it will twitch back and then continue crawling up the pane of glass it just hit. He is not swimming like crazy, just normal moderate pace. Anyone else see this kind of behaviour? I've only seen this in rays that are already curling do this but they are always swimming like crazy and literally RAMMING into the glass, this is just light bumping. Any issues here?

EDIT: forgot to add, no slime coat shedding and belly isnt red so its probably not a stress related problem. Any possibilities of water param difference? Maybe a couple water changes does the trick?

 

[skynoch]

I've seen this on a couple of my rays that were stressed for a long period of time and near death. I lost one and had one live. I haven't seen this behavior just from a change in water parameters before. I don't think I can offer any advice to you that you don't allready know but best of luck and I hope nothing to serious.

 

[Gshock]

I've seen this on a couple of my rays that were stressed for a long period of time and near death. I lost one and had one live. I haven't seen this behavior just from a change in water parameters before. I don't think I can offer any advice to you that you don't allready know but best of luck and I hope nothing to serious.

Thanks skynoch, I have the same experience too. I too have only seen this on rays near death or massively stressed out, but for some reason this one is actually looking pretty good. Only main difference I can see is, hes not ramming himself into it, just a gentle bump, but he still has a sort of twitching reaction once he bumps into the glass.

 

[CrAzYNeSs]

Probably just getting use to its surroundings. GL Gshock!

 

[sharp tooth]

just do what your doing mate. if you can get him eating then youll probably be fine aslong as he isnt to far gone.

i had 2 males do this but both were past the point of being able to eat. both slowly swam and acted quite normal 80% of the time then everynow and then would sit and spin round and round in the same spot. at this point i would say brain damage had happend.

if yours is wild caught then remember it has never seen glass before and never had to worrie about swimming into something it couldent see! it may take a little time for it to figure out how to tell its getting close to the glass, im sure all it can see is a faint reflection as its gets very close. with the lights off there may be nothing to reflect an image bact to the ray.
i know my aro snaps at the glass sometimes when i drop food in, as he sees it reflection in the front glass.

maybe cover the sides of the tankand see if that helps?

 

[Gshock]

Thanks for all the input guys, the ray this morning still looks pretty good, haven't seen an circling yet and I havent seen it run into the glass again. Sharp toot'h, your theory might just be right, now that it knows the glass is actually there, it doesn't run into it anymore. Will try to get it on some crawlers later but not really that concerned about feeding as it did come in pretty healthy.

 

[Gshock]

Well some more wierd stuff has come up. I attempted to feed, using 2 peices of chopped up crawlers, very very small. I threw the 2 peices in the tank and instantly the ray took notice. He started swimming towards and actually swam on top and tried chewing, but then bolted off as if the worm was attacking. Now the ray is scared of the worm? Everything else is good though, it has stopped swimming into the glass from what I can see, and theres no sign of curling. Breathing is also normal, so Im going to assume this guy will be fine once he learns how to eat these worms LOL.

 

[spotfin]

I had a ray once that was scared of a worm. It may have wriggled too much. The ray soon learned it was food though.

What is your new ray?

 

[Gshock]

I had a ray once that was scared of a worm. It may have wriggled too much. The ray soon learned it was food though.

What is your new ray?

Im pretty sure the worm doesnt move though, its cut so small so that I don't think it can even contract or expand anymore. Ive thrown even smaller peices in there now, as small as I can possibly cut and hes still scared as heck. Its a retic for some experiments im going to run during the winter break.

 

[spotfin]

I've got a small 3.25" retic right now that will eat baby red wriggler worms ( size of a black worm), but won't eat a larger worm chopped into tiny pieces.

What kind of experiments do you plan on running?