yum

How did our fair city treat you? Did you enjoy any deep dish pizza while you were here?

Thanks for the pics. I've been able to spot the fry again which is an amazing feat in my jungle of a tank. It seems to like a certain spot up front in the mornings so if I'm lucky, I can catch a glimpse of him when I first turn on the lights. It's really hard to tell if it's a pygmy cory or a otto. I'm thinking it's developing cory characteristics but now that I look at your pics, I'm not so sure. It's now at least 8 days since I first spotted him/her and it's gotten a good deal bigger; probably the length of 2 grains of rice? How long did your fry survive? Were they in a breeding tank or in with the general population?

 

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SKSuser

Chicago was very nice, thank you. We took the train with some friends which gave us plenty of time to play cards and Nintindo on the way. The japanamation conference was right across from our hotel, so there were furries, warriors, red mages, and clowns all over the place. Purely coincidence that we were there at the same time, but it was fun to put our feeble anime knowlege to the test and try to guess who they all were anyway. We had a great pizza at Giordano's. The Water Tower was ritzy. The Shed was awesome. The headless sculptures were creepy. I plan to go back.

Anyway,
The spawn which this thread mostly talks about did not survive past the mating ritual. I noticed them performing their embrace, but never saw any eggs. With all my sword plants in there, I could not see every surface without disturbing things.

In my first breeding which has a thread somewhere else on the boards (and a link from this one somewhere on page 2), the fry survived for several days. Perhaps a week if they were lucky. I had some pesky yoyo loaches which were too hard to catch without stirring up the rest of the tank.

Over all, my attempts to raise them to adulthood have been unsuccessful... I think. You see, I put two oto cats into that tank, and one time while moving the driftwood around I could swear that there were three darting around. Perhaps my imagination though.

You should take some pictures just in case its not a cory. There are very few examples of Oto fry on the internet, and most are even worse quality than my shots. I have yet to see a juvie picture, or better yet a catelouge of an Oto's development. Yours may be the first.

Zapins

Hmm, interesting thread! I want to breed my otos but unfortunately I can't change the barometric pressure haha (if that is in fact what causes them to breed.

apistomaster

In a heavily planted tank with no potential predators, any Otocinclus that hatch should have no trouble finding enough foods until they become large enough to eat the same foods used on the adults.

One of the reasons Otocinclus spawns are not well documented and tend to be incidental is that few people dedicate a heavily planted and well established tank just for Otocinclus. The easiest way to induce a planned spawn is to skip normal water changes for a month then resume making large frequent water changes, preferably with RO water, daily to simulate the dry then wet season. The fresh water should be cool enough to cause a drop of 5 to 10*F below the normal temperature. Allow the heat to rise back to normal temperatures. Continue to repeat this cycle until they spawn. If they are ready to spawn, this is when they will do it. It is not necessary to remove the breeders. They won't bother their eggs or fry. Very few people try to breed them because they do not cost much and they fail to provide Otocinclus with the proper conditions and sizable groups. They are much easier to breed when kept in groups of 10 or 20. It is very rewarding to breed and raise a species few other have regardless of how inexpensive they are.

SKSuser

Wow!
Awesome information. Thank you apistomaster. I'm assuming by your comment that you've successfully bred them. Any pictures of the proceedings?

How do you keep 20 Otos fed? What size tank do they require when kept in this number? Do potential predators include dithers such as some of the quieter tetras, or shrimp? If those tankmates are unacceptable, what else could you keep in the tank?

I'm assuming I should run with no filter or powerhead as the babies could get sucked up. Am I correct, or do they prefer a strong current? For me, they always seemed to mate and finally place their eggs in the exhaust wash from my filter. so its a toss up. I guess the best thing to do in that regard might be to put some filter floss over the intake and then watch day and night to make sure they don't get stuck to it.

They are one of my favorite fish. I think I could stand looking at basically empty tank if it were full of Otocinclus. They seem to "just sit there," but if you're still when you're around the tank they get interesting and do funny things that amuse me.

I love em!

yum

I'm sorry to hear you've had such troubles with your otto fry, SKSuser. But glad to hear you enjoyed Chicago! Just so you know when you come back, we take our hot dogs as seriously as we do our pizza. So, beware not to put ketchup on your hotdog and make sure you get genuine Vienna hotdogs. :P Next time try Gino's East deep dish pizza and order the "sausage patty". They are the only place that I know of that does this style. Normal pizzas have just chunks of sausage, when you order the patty at Gino's they cover the ENTIRE TOP of the pizza with a sheet of sausage. *DROOL* OMG so good. Ahem... back on topic...

Ok, so I have some exciting news... at least to me it was really exciting. I spotted the fry again and this time a 2nd as well. The odd thing is this one was half the size of the other. I would have thought that if they hatched at the same time, they would be the same size.

Either way, I'm still not sure they are ottos. Their bodies are still translucent but I think the lil mouths have the barbels of a cory forming.

I tried to take some pics with my point and shoot digital but it's too blurry. I even tried using a magnifying glass. Alas, all blurry.

Apistomaster, you know a lot about fish indeed!

yum

Ok, I fiddled with my camera enough to get a decent shot of the fry. I took this shot in combo with a magnifying glass :P

I think it's a cory hastatus and not an otto, especially since I saw it schooling with the adult cories for a short time last night.

ray-the-pilot

My feeling is that you need lots of algae for Oto’s to spawn and grow. With that element, breeding and rearing is rather simple.

I’ve been struggling with keeping algae under control since I started my aquarium back in early April. I purchased 6 Oto’s strictly for algae control and when one died I bought two more.

I’ve been suffering with bad substrate (Eco Complete) and trying to bring my pH and KH down. I’ve been doing 10% water changes (using RO water) every other day. You would think this was bad for my plants and fish but that doesn’t seem to be the case. My neon’ and Oto’s frequently spawn. And the plants are starting to get weedy. The problem is purely aesthetic with lots of hair and staghorn algae.

When I purchased the Oto’s, you couldn’t tell the males from the females but now anyone can distinguish from the plumpness which are the females.

I took two of the Oto eggs on a plant leaf and placed it in an open plastic container that floats on the surface of my tank. The eggs hatched in 48 hours and I started feeding them algae scrapings from my tank. I tried using algae tablets but the babies ignore them. The algae continued to grow in the container so I haven’t been feeding them anything after about 3-4 days. All I do is change the water in the container a couple of time each day. About 10 days later I took 2 more eggs on a leaf and placed it in the container. When they hatched, I realized that the first two had doubled in size in less than two weeks. I’ve also noticed some baby Oto’s darting around in my community tank.

I have a 52 gal corner aquarium. KH is 3, pH is 7.6, phosphates are 0.1, NO3 is 7.

Tex Gal

Ray-the-pilot how about some pxs?

ray-the-pilot

Well, I wouldn’t say that I don’t know exactly what I’m doing!

I set up my first aquarium in the 1960’s and met William Innes way back then. I’ve had several different reincarnations as an aquarium enthusiast and this is the latest. My goal was to set up a S. American biotype featuring Discus in a planted aquarium. It is the centerpiece of my home office. I am a chemist by profession; so water chemistry is not a mystery to me. I admit that my last previous aquarium was disassembled and sold around 1990; so my current knowledge is weak. That being said, I do know sick fish/plants from healthy ones and I have a decided advanced aesthetic sense for aqua-art.
I suppose that your purpose for asking for pics is to verify what I wrote? Well tell me how to take a picture of a baby Oto in a beaker? I have my own stereo microscope and looked at the eggs on the leaf. You could see the babies wriggling in the eggs and could easily identify them as Oto’s. I would have identified the neon’s as well but those eggs dropped to the bottom of my aquarium and were probably eaten by my Axelrod Cats.
BTW There are a lot of pictures and details about Oto’s breeding on the Internet. I’m not very current on this but I think that most of the Oto’s for sale today come from SE Asia where they are breed commercially. I could be wrong about this and I often am but you might want to check it out? If I’m wrong tell me!
Now I admit that for an aesthetically pleasing tank, algae is bad but for the reproduction of an algae eater it may be essential.

BTW the pictures of your tanks are really great. Good job!

 

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