8 year old BD Male passed away.

[danotaylor]

Do you or have you checked your nitrate levels as a general rule? Do you know what the nitrates were regularly before the power outage?
As I mentioned above, I change 450gal of a 600gal system in a single exchange every week. That’s a 75% weekly water change, every week, without fail. My rays not only show no signs of stress with these big water changes, they actually have increased activity and display behavior that shows their love for clean fresh water on water change day.
If you have very high nitrates all the time, then the hit your bio filter took with the outages made your water even more toxic by adding ammonia and most likely nitrite into that equation and overwhelmed your ray in a short period of time.
Please understand that I am just looking at your situation from a practicality stand point using the information you have provided.
In short, with big waste producers like rays and oscars, large weekly water changes are necessary to keep the nitrates at a non-toxic level. Others on here here use a drip system which is continually exchanging water, and if I understand correctly from those I have had dialogue with, the drip exchange amounts to somewhere between 50 & 100% of the total water volume over a week long period.

 

[troublesum]

I understand the whole concept of WC i do 3 80% WC a week Mon, Wed, Fri. and i have seen and heard of people having large fish in small tanks with out doing WC for months to the point where the water is black and green.
I know jack chit about Rays but i would think it would take more then 3 days for ammonia and nitrate creep to kill a 8 year old Ray

 

[Black_Diamond]

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?

Yes that is correct. I've never done it any other way except for maybe once in awhile i would do say 20 discharges if the water looked cloudy a little or there was a little extra food left from feedings... I was led to believe that 5 to 10 gallons a day would be sufficient I mean it worked for 5 years. The tank is bare as well so there's no plant life or substrate in there making it dirty.

Sub question: how much k1 should i have in the media chamber? In my opinion it isn't enough, but it does make it so that it is a true moving bed, however in my first tank (200gal) there was much more media it almost filled the chamber of the sump and did not actually move it just bubbled because of the airstones but those were media balls not k1.

 

[danotaylor]

I understand the whole concept of WC i do 3 80% WC a week Mon, Wed, Fri. and i have seen and heard of people having large fish in small tanks with out doing WC for months to the point where the water is black and green.
I know jack chit about Rays but i would think it would take more then 3 days for ammonia and nitrate creep to kill a 8 year old Ray

It seems the OP's filter crashed during a power outage. Ammonia will build up immediately when the beneficial bacteria is compromised, especially with fish that produce obscene amounts of waste like rays & oscars. The nitrates were already astronomically high it seems from years of very limited water changes. In low levels nitrates are less toxic, but in high levels continuously cause stress to fish and become increasingly toxic. Add to toxic levels of nitrate a sudden increase in ammonia & nitrite from a cycle crash and in 3 days it is very reasonable to expect deaths, especially with fish that are highly sensitive to ammonia & nitrite, as ray are

 

[danotaylor]

B Black_Diamond Ok, so please understand I am trying to help you...I understand the pain of your loss, and I am certainly not trying to be mean here, but you asked for input on why your ray "suddenly" passed away after 5 years.

I am not sure who "led you to believe 5-10 gal/day" (35-70 gal per week) water changes in a 400 gallon system were enough for fish that produce massive amounts of waste like rays & oscars. I promise you, that is absolutely nowhere near the case. It may have appeared to have worked for 5 years, but I would suggest you were teetering on the verge of disaster for most of that time. In my 560 gallon ray tank, my nitrates climb from 10-20 on water change day to 80-100 in 7 days changing 450 gallons per week in 1 exchange. Your nitrate levels would honestly have been astronomical with such small daily exchanges over 5 years.

Biological filtration converts toxic fish waste, ammonia & nitrite, to less toxic fish waste, nitrates. There is no mechanism in closed system to remove the less toxic waste without a crap ton of live plants, an anaerobic filter bed (questionable in terms of true effectiveness) and water changes.

 

[danotaylor]

I am hoping to help you see that the sudden addition of toxic levels of ammonia & nitrite when your filter crashed during the power outage, in addition to astronomically high nitrates from a lack of water changes over a 5 year period, caused your already stressed wet pet to succumb quickly to environmental toxins. I hope to help you avert the same outcome if you get another ray. When ever a filter goes through a cycle period where ammonia & nitrites are present, increased water changes, adding Seachem Prime in the dosing recommended to detoxify ammonia are essential, and also the addition of salt at 1tbsp/5gal to prevent nitrite poisoning. It should be noted here that the detox dosing of Prime only converts ammonia to harmless ammonium for about 24 hours while your filter catches up. In extremely high ammonia cases it may be necessary to detox dose daily in addition to water changes to remove the toxic waste while the filter can catch up.

I see you have posted elsewhere here on MFK looking for input on establishing a continuous drip system. That is a great idea since you expressed concern about "shocking" your ray with big individual water changes, though in my experience, my rays clearly love water change day at my place when I drain and replace 450 gallons in about 45 minutes.

Again, I am very sorry you lost your BD friend. Hopefully you can get your system revamped to go at it again!

 

[Black_Diamond]

I am hoping to help you see that the sudden addition of toxic levels of ammonia & nitrite when your filter crashed during the power outage, in addition to astronomically high nitrates from a lack of water changes over a 5 year period, caused your already stressed wet pet to succumb quickly to environmental toxins. I hope to help you avert the same outcome if you get another ray. When ever a filter goes through a cycle period where ammonia & nitrites are present, increased water changes, adding Seachem Prime in the dosing recommended to detoxify ammonia are essential, and also the addition of salt at 1tbsp/5gal to prevent nitrite poisoning. It should be noted here that the detox dosing of Prime only converts ammonia to harmless ammonium for about 24 hours while your filter catches up. In extremely high ammonia cases it may be necessary to detox dose daily in addition to water changes to remove the toxic waste while the filter can catch up.

I see you have posted elsewhere here on MFK looking for input on establishing a continuous drip system. That is a great idea since you expressed concern about "shocking" your ray with big individual water changes, though in my experience, my rays clearly love water change day at my place when I drain and replace 450 gallons in about 45 minutes.

Again, I am very sorry you lost your BD friend. Hopefully you can get your system revamped to go at it again!

I really appreciate all of your great feedback thank you so much, I am not sure where I got the idea that that was enough but I was very much wrong.

 

[Black_Diamond]

I am hoping to help you see that the sudden addition of toxic levels of ammonia & nitrite when your filter crashed during the power outage, in addition to astronomically high nitrates from a lack of water changes over a 5 year period, caused your already stressed wet pet to succumb quickly to environmental toxins. I hope to help you avert the same outcome if you get another ray. When ever a filter goes through a cycle period where ammonia & nitrites are present, increased water changes, adding Seachem Prime in the dosing recommended to detoxify ammonia are essential, and also the addition of salt at 1tbsp/5gal to prevent nitrite poisoning. It should be noted here that the detox dosing of Prime only converts ammonia to harmless ammonium for about 24 hours while your filter catches up. In extremely high ammonia cases it may be necessary to detox dose daily in addition to water changes to remove the toxic waste while the filter can catch up.

I see you have posted elsewhere here on MFK looking for input on establishing a continuous drip system. That is a great idea since you expressed concern about "shocking" your ray with big individual water changes, though in my experience, my rays clearly love water change day at my place when I drain and replace 450 gallons in about 45 minutes.

Again, I am very sorry you lost your BD friend. Hopefully you can get your system revamped to go at it again!

So its too late now obviously but this is after three 20% water changes since he passed and this is what my parameters look like, do these look bad to you????

 

[danotaylor]

So you still have ammonia somewhere between 0.25-0.5ppm. Ammonia is more toxic at higher pH, meaning the same ammonia reading at pH 7 or less is more toxic to fish when the pH is >7. Your pH looks to be around 8, so the ammonia present is more toxic in these water conditions.
Your nitrite looks to be around 0.25, the lowest readable level. It is still stressful to fish even at this low level, but the addition of salt so the system will enable the fish to avert nitrite poisoning. 1tbsp/5gal. I will attach a pic here soon off my cell phone of the salt I buy from home depot for $8/40#, a necessary quantity for large volume tanks like ours.
Your nitrate looks to be 5-10 which is a very acceptable level, and what I target my return too on water change day. Once the ammonia & nitrite present are converted I would expect your nitrate to be somewhere in the 40-80 range.
The good news about the presence of nitrite means that the nitrobactors that convert ammonia to nitrite are present in your filter. And the presence of nitrate means the nitrosomas that convert harmful nitrite to less harmful nitrate are also present.
This is great news because it means your beneficial bacterial colony is present & on their way to a full cycle once more.

 

[danotaylor]

This salt is 99.8% pure sodium chloride. I’ve been using it since I moved to the US 11years ago…