DB as someone that has lost several very expensive rays I'm feeling for you. I infected my main tank by adding rays that I got from a breeder I thought I could trust. My female motoro came down with similar symptoms but she was able to recover with extra water changes. Unfortunately I was unable to save any of the blacks or pearl. Best of luck.
The beginning of the end? Raykeepers nightmare.
- Thread starter DB junkie
- Start date
This ray was p[oisoned with Ammonia?Nitrite/Nitrate and it takes 2-3 weeks sometiomes for the Liver to fail completely and result in death...the listless swimming and finding it upside down are clear signs of that...NOTHING will help a ray that is experiencing a slow Liver/Organ failure from poison...and sometimes they will even seem better for a period of time before they go down hill rapidly. I lost a few pups this way before I learned my lessons...I know firsthand...and none of these are symptoms that Al is mentioning.
Al...how much salt are you running right now? I saw where you have added it, but not how much... Some people are afraid of more than 1lb/100g but to me, that is a maintenance dose. My rays always react positively to a full 4lb/100g tratment....It weakens and kills a lot of bacteria and ich type parasites that aren't so much treated with Prazi.
Wishing the best for you
Mike
Blimey Al only just seen this thread,really sorry things have turned pear shaped.
If it was me i would keep things simple,whack up temp to 84-86 deg,install a large close contact UV and add salt at a rate of half ounce per gallon.Anything less than this and its not affective,i suggest you don't worry about feeding for up to a week,this way the water remains pristine and keeps things stable due to not having to change the water(salt stays at the correct level during this period).
You have used Prazi and indeed its a fabulous treatment in many cases but unless you have seen a marked improvement during this time i would cease using it or any other chemical.Uvs and salt work very well on many viruses i have found over the years,its the first thing i try when i have a problem where there seems to be no external problems but fish die for no apparent reason.Salt unlike chemicals stays in the water at full strength during the treatment period and is a very natural remedy,i've had unbelievable results with it over 40 years of fishkeeping and never killed anything by using it.
Try what i say and sit and wait,patience is the key,changing things through panicking can have negative results,sure you might still lose one or two throughout this but in my experience most will pull through,any you do lose are the ones that are too far gone,if this happens it doesn't mean the treatment isn't doing its job.
Discus like many commercially bred fish carry viruses,these viruses are created by man in many ways through cultivated \selective breeding,Discus ,Angels,Guppies to name a few are some of the worst culprits,when these tank bred fish are added to an aquarium or system housing wild fish they have no resistance which is the problem i think you have.Salt for many years as been regarded as been effective for reducing stress in freshwater rays and other species,perhaps this is what it does,buys the fish some time whilst its antibodies build up a resistance,who knows,im no scientist but my god its worked wonders for me over the years.
I wish you all the best in which ever road you take my friend.
Richard.
If it was me i would keep things simple,whack up temp to 84-86 deg,install a large close contact UV and add salt at a rate of half ounce per gallon.Anything less than this and its not affective,i suggest you don't worry about feeding for up to a week,this way the water remains pristine and keeps things stable due to not having to change the water(salt stays at the correct level during this period).
You have used Prazi and indeed its a fabulous treatment in many cases but unless you have seen a marked improvement during this time i would cease using it or any other chemical.Uvs and salt work very well on many viruses i have found over the years,its the first thing i try when i have a problem where there seems to be no external problems but fish die for no apparent reason.Salt unlike chemicals stays in the water at full strength during the treatment period and is a very natural remedy,i've had unbelievable results with it over 40 years of fishkeeping and never killed anything by using it.
Try what i say and sit and wait,patience is the key,changing things through panicking can have negative results,sure you might still lose one or two throughout this but in my experience most will pull through,any you do lose are the ones that are too far gone,if this happens it doesn't mean the treatment isn't doing its job.
Discus like many commercially bred fish carry viruses,these viruses are created by man in many ways through cultivated \selective breeding,Discus ,Angels,Guppies to name a few are some of the worst culprits,when these tank bred fish are added to an aquarium or system housing wild fish they have no resistance which is the problem i think you have.Salt for many years as been regarded as been effective for reducing stress in freshwater rays and other species,perhaps this is what it does,buys the fish some time whilst its antibodies build up a resistance,who knows,im no scientist but my god its worked wonders for me over the years.
I wish you all the best in which ever road you take my friend.
Richard.
i agree with you about it taking 2-3 weeks for a ray to die because of liver failure due to ammonia poisoning.but if you read the post i did i state a few times that this little ray lingered around my house for over 4 months.certainly you dont think i thought of this??? i fought hard for that ray and looked at it from outside the box for the last few months.
you know why it lasted so long was because i kept the water pristine.and that ray only swam upside down when i put prazi in the tank.i did daily water tests ,i not need explain myself to you guys at all anymore i know what i discovered and observed in my house its always difficult to give a diagnosis on something that didnt happen in front of you!
so if you guys want to medicate the heck out of your rays go ahead why dont you try a 16x dose of prazi or even like the bottle says 5x dose see what your result is. my conclusion was that that ray i had lingereing for 4 months probably would have lived if i didnt medicate it a few times when all it needed was some time to come around
i do remember talking to a fellow on here 2 years ago he was telling me to inject my earthworms with prazi cause i suspected parasites but was wrong for sure.i took his advice a fed them to a nice leoxhen hybrid and dosed the water aswell.a week later she went pale her organs started to fail and only her cause i fed her prazi did she die.
rays dont get ich
and salt wont do anything if its bacteria attacking his rays. if its bacteria he needs a 100% diagnosis than medicate ,but all the drugs that kill off baceteria are very hard on rays espcailly already weakend ones.
great advice from clearwaterguy and aquaman. salt and waterchanges, the kiss method.
i use a 57 watt aqua uv on my 450 gal
i use a 57 watt aqua uv on my 450 gal
One more iron in the fire of causes:
Could a toxic substance, say Copper, have entered your system? There are a few parasite medications that contain Copper. Could one of these medications have made it into your system? I know you are an experienced keeper, I just want to lend a hand in any way that I can. Do you need a place to house any of your rays until this all passes?
Like I said, just one more iron in the fire of causes.
Could a toxic substance, say Copper, have entered your system? There are a few parasite medications that contain Copper. Could one of these medications have made it into your system? I know you are an experienced keeper, I just want to lend a hand in any way that I can. Do you need a place to house any of your rays until this all passes?
Like I said, just one more iron in the fire of causes.
First off..... Calgary, do us all a favor and go away. You were supposed to never post here agin after your tantrum yesterday. Do us all a favor, stick to your word, and don't come back. Your advice is garbage and your experiences mean nothing to anyone but you. Everyday I ask you to please refrain from posting here and everyday you seem to want to add more. You're doing nothing but being argumentative. I believe in meds. You don't. So this thread does NOT pertain to you or your beliefs. Go do something constructive like attempt to educate us all on that nice Boesemani of yours.
Richard and Mike, thank you for your advice. It has been a long time since using salt so I wanted to start off by adding it slowly. Will get more aggressive over the next few days. I have used up to 4lbs/100 gallons with no ill effects. Back before I had a real filter I relied heavily on salt whenever someone acted up or wounds got ugly. Since then I have made several changes in filtration, added a drip system and spread the population out. I am a firm believer in salt and will continue to use it. There was salt added to the juvie tank right after the Pearl was removed upon my arrival home. The heat is already up around 82.
Well last night I did some dividing in my 750 while the juvie tank was draining. I remebered the draining just in time to see the Discus swimming as if they were stingrays.... lol I changed all but a few inches of water. Left the drip wide open for today. Added no meds back in yet. I have only ran one dose of Prazi and last night was day 3 so I figured I'd flush the tank and decide whether to proceed with another treatment or just forget it. Juvie tank has the 2 eating rays divided from the one that isn't eating. The non eater (light based lady Marble) doesn't look much different today. No better no worse.
I have the 3 Marbles refusing food in the 750 seperated. 1 took some shrimp last night. Added a dose of salt last night, crranked up drip and will do a giant waterchange and clean socks tonight.
Wouldn't it be something if rays DO get Ich and we just don't see it? How do we treat Ich with other fish? Salt and temp...... HRMMMMM.
This is really puzzling me. What if a super virus could live in our rays undetected for years? This light base Marble was imported and arrived in bad shape. She was sold then returned after refusing to eat. The importer nursed her back to eating again and once eating again was returned to the guy I got her from. She pulled the same finicky eating crap for over a month when I first got her here. She had been ok for a year or better, BUT never did swell up like the others after a huge meal, and has always had strage qwirks the others didn't, like swimming upside down at the water's surface. I gave up caring after the second month of this odd behavior.
Seems to me we all have boughts with this crap and after we nurse the rays back to health and they begin eating regularly again we assume it's gone. What if it's NOT gone at all but rather dormant? What if it slowly evolves to become resistant to whatever we use to chase it off?
Look how many rays there has been slowly waste away, look at all the threads, they're everywhere. We just accept the fact that rays die, could it be possible that we need to accept that we just haven't found a cure for this "aids" of the potomotrygon species?
I for one would love to know more about microscope findings from some knowledgable sources........ Like Mr. Webber, or Mr. Ross.
Richard and Mike, thank you for your advice. It has been a long time since using salt so I wanted to start off by adding it slowly. Will get more aggressive over the next few days. I have used up to 4lbs/100 gallons with no ill effects. Back before I had a real filter I relied heavily on salt whenever someone acted up or wounds got ugly. Since then I have made several changes in filtration, added a drip system and spread the population out. I am a firm believer in salt and will continue to use it. There was salt added to the juvie tank right after the Pearl was removed upon my arrival home. The heat is already up around 82.
Well last night I did some dividing in my 750 while the juvie tank was draining. I remebered the draining just in time to see the Discus swimming as if they were stingrays.... lol I changed all but a few inches of water. Left the drip wide open for today. Added no meds back in yet. I have only ran one dose of Prazi and last night was day 3 so I figured I'd flush the tank and decide whether to proceed with another treatment or just forget it. Juvie tank has the 2 eating rays divided from the one that isn't eating. The non eater (light based lady Marble) doesn't look much different today. No better no worse.
I have the 3 Marbles refusing food in the 750 seperated. 1 took some shrimp last night. Added a dose of salt last night, crranked up drip and will do a giant waterchange and clean socks tonight.
Wouldn't it be something if rays DO get Ich and we just don't see it? How do we treat Ich with other fish? Salt and temp...... HRMMMMM.
This is really puzzling me. What if a super virus could live in our rays undetected for years? This light base Marble was imported and arrived in bad shape. She was sold then returned after refusing to eat. The importer nursed her back to eating again and once eating again was returned to the guy I got her from. She pulled the same finicky eating crap for over a month when I first got her here. She had been ok for a year or better, BUT never did swell up like the others after a huge meal, and has always had strage qwirks the others didn't, like swimming upside down at the water's surface. I gave up caring after the second month of this odd behavior.
Seems to me we all have boughts with this crap and after we nurse the rays back to health and they begin eating regularly again we assume it's gone. What if it's NOT gone at all but rather dormant? What if it slowly evolves to become resistant to whatever we use to chase it off?
Look how many rays there has been slowly waste away, look at all the threads, they're everywhere. We just accept the fact that rays die, could it be possible that we need to accept that we just haven't found a cure for this "aids" of the potomotrygon species?
I for one would love to know more about microscope findings from some knowledgable sources........ Like Mr. Webber, or Mr. Ross.
I believe I have a copper test kit at home, will check tonight. Will also get some feeding vids. Both tanks have rays on one side of the divider destroying food and a side of the divider that runs from food.
