Could I have a pregnant Otto Cat?

S

spankey

AC Members
Dec 21, 2001
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Boyertown, PA
I transfered about 6 ottos out of my 55 today to a ten gallon riccia tank. The 10 gallon only contains the ottos and NO other fish...

OK..

After I did this, I noticed that one of the ottos' belly is hugely rounded! It looks like its carrying something.. All the other ottos look fine, smaller bellied....

Could this particular otto be pregnant?

Just curious.. Seeing how any fry will go to the lfs anyway... But again, just curious if anyone else ever seen one of these fish pregnant....

It looks almost as if she swallowed a marble....HA

Thanks
Spankey
 
No. Ottos are not livebearers and do not undergo pregnancy.
 
Thank you ,

It must just be the pig of the bunch!!! LOL...... But even if they are livebearers.. I have seen guppies the same way and they are live bearers? Does that make sense!!!!! The babies still would have to grow a tad wouldn't they????

thanks....

Spankey
 
If Ottos did have babies there would be minimal reason to take them to the pet store anyway since they go for something like $2 and they're so small they wouldn't add much bio load to you tank, and if you had live plants a whole crew of Ottos would be beneficial.
 
Originally posted by spankey
Thank you ,

It must just be the pig of the bunch!!! LOL...... But even if they are livebearers.. I have seen guppies the same way and they are live bearers? Does that make sense!!!!! The babies still would have to grow a tad wouldn't they????

thanks....

Spankey
Click to expand...

Read my post - Ottos are not livebearers.
 
Fish that are not livebeares don't get as large and bloated looking. The females will become heavy with egg, and this will result in a slight plumpness, but nothing on the scale of any livebearer.

If you do a search, you'll see there are few others who have seen the same thing with otos. It seems a few are prone to developing huge round tummies. I had poor luck with otos after this happened, but several people report the fish living for years looking ready to pop.
 
I was relieved to read someone's comment about fat ottos ready to pop living long lives. I have one that is like that and has been for about four months. I've thought about catching it and switching it to another tank to see of the stomach would go down, but those little beggers are hard to net.
 
the females will get a bit more rotund if they happen to get heavy with eggs. try doing a web search on breeding them. I found one guy that had managed to raise some of the babies. I will say that what most have done to do so is throw abunch in a well planted tank and let them be.
 
A couple of my otto's are the same way. I put four of them in a tank after a fishless cycle and had a pretty good amount of brown algae. I just chaulked it up to them eating really well because they are still going strong, keeping my tank nice and clean.

Eager
 
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