I Am An Idiot

[CFC]

I cant believe what a stupendous mistake i made today

When i got in from work today and checked the tanks i saw that there was some uneaten food in the 180g so i tested the water and found it had a nitrite spike, as precaution i thought i'd better get the new little ray out of the tank and since it was feeding well decided to put in the 900g with the other rays.

Well i just went down to check that he had settled in ok and i no longer have a little ray, what i do have is a very fat Liearius pictus with a rays tail just visable down its throat. I seriously never thought it would even attempt to eat a 5-6" ray as it has never eaten any other fish before, what an absolute cock up.

 

[stang1]

So sorry CFC, you must be gutted.
Excuse my ignorance but wouldn't the sting from the ray harm the Pictus?

 

[Azaezl]

That's awful, poor little ray you live and learn(even if it is a horrible lesson).

 

[DarkEntity]

As i said in the mIRC channel, that must be gutting, sorry to hear about the Ray

 

[CFC]

So sorry CFC, you must be gutted.
Excuse my ignorance but wouldn't the sting from the ray harm the Pictus?

Catfish can digest pretty much anything so as long as the spines dont get stuck on the way down it wont do any harm, in the wild big catfish mainly prey on cichlids and smaller catfish so they are well adapted to dealing with spiney pectoral and dorsal fins so i presume stingrays are dealt with in the same way.

 

[stang1]

So sorry CFC, you must be gutted.
Excuse my ignorance but wouldn't the sting from the ray harm the Pictus?

Catfish can digest pretty much anything so as long as the spines dont get stuck on the way down it wont do any harm, in the wild big catfish mainly prey on cichlids and smaller catfish so they are well adapted to dealing with spiney pectoral and dorsal fins so i presume stingrays are dealt with in the same way.

Thanks CFC and sorry again.

 

[cane76]

thats a shame

 

[geo7x]

Sorry to hear that, don't blame yourself predatory fish are hard to judge I'm sure.

Are the fish in the tank with the nitrite spike ok?

 

[GobyMaster]

Oh, sorry to hear that!
Predatory fish can be really, really mean sometimes!
Hope nothing like this happens again for you!
Cheers,
GobyMaster

 

[shelaghfishface]

awww. genuine mistake, tho sorry for u
xxxxxxxxxx

 

[steelhealr]

Happens to the best of us CFC. We can't be perfect. Hang in. SH

 

[Colin_T]

Cut the catfish open and get the ray back out.

Expensive lesson

 

[CFC]

the catfish is worth more than the ray was so cutting it open would just make the mistake even more costly.

The thing i really can't understand it that there are 8 red hook silver dollars in the tank that are around the same size as the ray was and the cat never even looks at them, i guess she just had a taste for skate that day

 

[raptorrex]

Happens to the best of us CFC. We can't be perfect. Hang in. SH

i second this!!!!

the catfish is worth more than the ray was so cutting it open would just make the mistake even more costly.

The thing i really can't understand it that there are 8 red hook silver dollars in the tank that are around the same size as the ray was and the cat never even looks at them, i guess she just had a taste for skate that day

could it have anything to do with this ray being a stranger in the tank. also has the 180g settled down after the spike?

 

[CFC]

I think it was simply that the ray was just about small enough to be eaten, so it was, nothing but a really stupid error of judgement on my part.

I did a fairly big water change on the 180 yesterday afternoon and this morning all the fish look fine, i havent done any more water tests yet as i'll be doing water changes today anyway but these sort of spikes are usually fixed straight away just by removing the uneaten food and doing a water change, the filters take care of anything left pretty quickly.