8 year old BD Male passed away.

[Black_Diamond]

My poor good boy passed away last night and its all my fault. I seriously have never felt so ashamed and empty. Heres the story.

I've had him for 8 years since a pup. In my area we have now had two power outages that have lasted 7 days for one and 3 days for the other. After the 7 day outage I changed about 50 percent of his 400 gallon tank and he pulled through like a champ. It was alot of work, didnt have a generator and was running my system on a power inverter and the car for an hour at a time every few hours it was horrible but he pulled through.

This last time which was roughly one month ago, I had a generator and ran his tank essentially the whole time which was 3 days except at night while I was sleeping. After the power came on however maybe since I had been running his tank off and on I stupidly didnt do a big water change for him thinking that nothing had really changed for him during that time. I should mention I have a rotary drum filter sytem and about 450 total gallons in the system. So I let my system run as per usual stupidly not doing a large water change and not testing his water after the outage I have no excuses and no clue as to why I did this other than I thought because of the generator I was safe.

Well about two weeks went by and he started acting funny and I did about a 20 - 30% water change and the next day he bounced back and was being super friendly again swimming up the glass letting me pet him so I thought ok great i did it right, i put in an extra big airstone just to give him some extra o2 and he was good.

Then two nights ago I came home from work and noticed he wasnt so active and looked like his breathing was labored. I called my main stingray guy (who is now out of the game so has no more) and he said to check my water and sure as **** the nitrates and ammonia were through the roof as if my tank wasnt cycled at all. Me and my wife spent all night changing 50% of the water and went to bed woke up and he was still alive so I thought ok great I'll go to work and come home and change more water again and he will pull through. My wife got home and he was alive, two hours later I got home started to take out water and he died within 20 mins.

I'm not sure where I went wrong except when the power came back I should have done a large water change, but how much 20, 30, 50% obviously you dont want to shock the animal, but what would have been the right attack? I just dont understand why my system crazhed and now when i test it its essentially not cycled at all.... theres two large oscars in there with him for company but they can live in anything apparantly so that wouldnt have told me anything... I'm so lost...

And to make matters worse I live in Reno, NV and the only person I know who is a big producer wont ship to me anymore because they joined there liscence with another fellow so I have zero way to get another animal.

Anyways thanks for listening if you made it through this post I appreciate it.

 

[troublesum]

WOW that really sux 8 years is a good run. Sorry about your loss

 

[AR1]

So sorry for your loss. Just lost my ID shark today so i can feel the pain. Hope you pull through it.

 

[DawnMichele]

Sorry for your loss.

 

[danotaylor]

That sucks mate, sorry Power outages are a real dilemma when keeping aquatic animals.

So you asked “what would have been the right attack?” My thoughts…none of which are meant as an attack, just theorizing pragmatically with the info you supplied

The high nitrates can be accounted for since rays produce so much waste and, by what you shared, your water change schedule seemed to be minimal even when things were going well. My 3 rays are very tolerant of large water changes. I change 450gal of my systems 600gal total in 1 exchange every week. My rays love water change day.

The high ammonia is a different story. This is a clear indication of a die off in your beneficial bacteria colony since the waste production in your system was seemingly unchanged with the same density of stock, and presumably same feeding routine also.

What can you tell us about your filtration system apart from it being a rotary drum? What kind of media does it use? Where does the beneficial bacteria grow/live? The bacterial colony, being live, needs oxygen and food (ammonia & nitrite). If in a closed system, like with canisters, the colony can very quickly consume available oxygen and die off during power outages. If the system was off for 6-8 at a time when you were sleeping for 3 consecutive nights that may have been long enough for your bacterial colony to die down to a level where the ammonia could not be converted fast enough to avert disaster.

In my tanks with canister filters, any time the power of off longer than 4 hours, I open the canisters and put the biomedia into buckets of clean tank water and aerate using a cup every 4-6 hours to deoxygenate the water. With my sumps in the ray tank I pour tank water over the media towers using the same time frame. This is a challenging process for long outages but fortunately in my area that is rare.
The only other options other than oxygenating your media bed is large frequent water changes, particularly when dealing w species that are super sensitive to ammonia like rays are.

I hope you are successful finding another source of a ray mate. Peace

 

[Black_Diamond]

Sorry for your loss.

Thank you very much

 

[Black_Diamond]

So sorry for your loss. Just lost my ID shark today so i can feel the pain. Hope you pull through it.

Oh no Im sorry, people never think losing fish is painful but i think it is if youve cared for them for any long period of time.

 

[Black_Diamond]

WOW that really sux 8 years is a good run. Sorry about your loss

Appreciate it, 8 years was a good run but he had another 12 in him I know it.

 

[Black_Diamond]

That sucks mate, sorry Power outages are a real dilemma when keeping aquatic animals.

So you asked “what would have been the right attack?” My thoughts…none of which are meant as an attack, just theorizing pragmatically with the info you supplied

The high nitrates can be accounted for since rays produce so much waste and, by what you shared, your water change schedule seemed to be minimal even when things were going well. My 3 rays are very tolerant of large water changes. I change 450gal of my systems 600gal total in 1 exchange every week. My rays love water change day.

The high ammonia is a different story. This is a clear indication of a die off in your beneficial bacteria colony since the waste production in your system was seemingly unchanged with the same density of stock, and presumably same feeding routine also.

What can you tell us about your filtration system apart from it being a rotary drum? What kind of media does it use? Where does the beneficial bacteria grow/live? The bacterial colony, being live, needs oxygen and food (ammonia & nitrite). If in a closed system, like with canisters, the colony can very quickly consume available oxygen and die off during power outages. If the system was off for 6-8 at a time when you were sleeping for 3 consecutive nights that may have been long enough for your bacterial colony to die down to a level where the ammonia could not be converted fast enough to avert disaster.

In my tanks with canister filters, any time the power of off longer than 4 hours, I open the canisters and put the biomedia into buckets of clean tank water and aerate using a cup every 4-6 hours to deoxygenate the water. With my sumps in the ray tank I pour tank water over the media towers using the same time frame. This is a challenging process for long outages but fortunately in my area that is rare.
The only other options other than oxygenating your media bed is large frequent water changes, particularly when dealing w species that are super sensitive to ammonia like rays are.

I hope you are successful finding another source of a ray mate. Peace

Thanks for the detailed response. Ive attached pics of my RDF it has a floating bed with k1 and a giant airstone in it. In the event if a power outage I have a gas generator but do not run it 24/7 i will turn it on for a couple hours then leave it off for a couple hours as to let the water flow and cycle the drum. The RDF expels I believe a gallon per discharge and i do that roughly 5 to 10 times a day so daily its getting that much fresh water.
I have been successful with this method for 5 years now and havent had the need to do a large water change unless the power goes out which unfortunately happens not often but happens and it just depends on how lone it lasts. This one was three days. So using the generator it was on and off the whole 3 days.
My biggest question and Thing that is puzzling me the most is jow much water changes do you do after a three day outage like that and how much each time???
I imagine the more the better but then again you also dont want to shock the animal. So its my opinion that this last power outage completely uncycled my tank and with live animals in it how would you ever keep them alive to re-cycle the tank?
Is 50% the first change too much, would that have even made a difference Idk because the tank had crashed. Its puzzling and infuriating.

 

[danotaylor]

The only way to effectively reduce high nitrates, the end byproduct of the nitrogen cycle, is large water changes. Ray and oscars produce a lot of waste, and therefore a cycled filter will convert all the waste to nitrate. Nitrate in low levels is essentially harmless, but in high levels is not healthy.
Am I understanding correctly that the 5-10GPD that the drum discharges is the only water that was getting changed in your 450gal tank over the 5 year period you have detailed?