yet another ray not eating thread...

[JeremyXXXX]

I turned my spare tank into a full blown feeder fish tank. Did some reading on here and I'll be starting to keep them in bulk and feeding them well before putting them in the tank for my ray to eat herself. Honestly, with the lighting and shape of my spare tank it actually looks really really nice at night in my room lol.

I'm feeding them flakes and blood worms to start not sure what else would be good for them.

 

[Ray'Oconner]

try chopping up raw shelled market shrimp.. might help..

 

[johno27]

I think trying to get her onto market shrimp is where the problem started. Just keep feeding her whatever she will eat and keep trying crawlers until she will take them again

 

[Raymann88]

I had a wild caught black ray with the same problem. She would eat well to the point the point one would claim she was pregnant, but never seemed to gain weight. She looked like she was losing weight. I treated with prazipro. It seemed to help but she still was not gaining much weight. Then I treated her with Meteonidiazole and she started putting on weight. I figured she may have had worms that were taking all the nutrients. Now she is huge and super fat.

Your ray probably is picking up parasites / worms from the feeders. if you are going to feed them (not recommended) you need to quarantine them for several weeks and treat them before feeding to your ray or the problem will keep reoccurring.

 

[Tor-Eriik]

Personaly i dont think parasites\worms from the feeders are the problem\or will ever be, just my 50 cents..Maybe im wrong.. What do you threat them for btw?(the feeders, since there is alot of different types of everything out there) Since you cant possibly know what they can have? Ive read alot of storys on here, gues i have gone against the wind somethimes..What im trying to say is, you can make your fishkeeping really hard if you want, but most of the times, its not neccesary, and the simplest things often fix the problem..

If you have rays on a food(example worms), you could put what you want the ray to eat, in a box with what they already eat overnight, so it gets the smell, and bom, they take it..Can take some thimes, but has worked on all of my WC rays.. I only fed what i wanted them over to.. If they didnt eat it after 3-4 days, i bulked them up again on what they ate.

 

[JeremyXXXX]

yea John I agree trying to get her to take market shrimp started this whole problem. I honestly am not a big believer in feeders being THAT bad. Not saying they are good and they should be feed often but they are like a person just eating potato chips...not healthy but filling. Bad example but I think you can get what I'm trying to say. Appears to be putting on weight and even the day after she eats and poops she still has some weight on here which is good. Gonna throw some night crawlers in there tonight hoping she takes them.

 

[ShadowStryder]

If I was to use feeder fish, whether minnows or some other type, I would have two seperate tanks for feeders. I would have one setup for treated feeders and another for new feeders that are being treated with two full treatments (with a week to ten days between treatments) of a broad spectrum parasitic med. This is how I did my shiners for pikes. Call it paranoid if you like, but when you spend enough money and/or form an attachment to a fish the last thing you want to do is kill it because of a sick feeder. And I would never use goldfish.
My best results to convert rays to other foods is to cut up crawlers into a container then add whatever it is I am trying to convert it to. Stir, then put in fridge to marinate for a couple hours. It has never failed, in fact just got my flower back onto shrimp this way.

Best of luck and hope she improves for you.

 

[JeremyXXXX]

thanks for another tip gonna try this! I'm already noticing she is much more active again and showing great color. Although she never lost much color she hasn't look this good in a while. Also, what is strange to me is my arowana used to show aggression towards the male ray but never the female. Now that the male is gone the arowana still doesn't pay any attention to the female...I guess the aro just didn't like the male.

 

[JeremyXXXX]

my view from my bed...looks a lot better in person. I'm actually liking them and after a week it's hard to scoop em out and throw them into my other tank as food lol. Thinking I may turn this into a tank just for feeders...cheap and they look great.