new otocinclus died overnight

Did you cycle the tank?

Kim

Otos aren't very hardy fish. I'm planning on getting some when they come into the LFS and plan on buying 6-8 because I know 50% of them will probably die.

Welcome to AC! Don't complain to the lfs there's nothing they can do about it, but they may have a 24 hour guarenty if you bring in the bodies and a sample of water. some people have a problem with ottos being "fragile", but I think it has more to do with the maturity of the tank. Ottos are constant grazers and if you don't have much algea that they can start eating right away they may die. If the one is still ok, just wait a couple more weeks to a month and try again. They are great little fish, but they require a mature tank. If your tank has been going for only about a month, then you are probably just finished with your cycle, I would say just try again after a little while.

Check your water parameters. Like IceH2O said, Oto's aren't very hardy at all and sometimes they just kind of croak. Although I doubt a barb and a tetra could create a giant ammonia spike overnight, there *may* be a chance that adding the fish all at once created a mini-cycle, something the ottos wouldn't do well with.

Seems a few others beat me to it while I was typing. I would have to disagree with you Ice, I have never lost an oto, but I have always added them after the tank has been running for quite some time and has some significant algea growth.

Your right, the clown loach would be way too big. For a 15 gallon I would recomend the ottos still, did you try to get replacement fish from the lfs or did you flush the fish when they died? Like I said, just try the ottos again, if anything wait a week or two longer. Otos, btw will very quickly eraticate diatomes (brown algea) and if you only have a little on rocks then you might need to wait a little longer. I know that it probably looks real bad right now but once your able to keep 3 ottos alive, they will do a good job of keeping your algea in check.

You may check on buying some food suplement for your otto if you don't have much algae. I keep other catfish, but I don't keep ottos. My catfish are catagorized as "scavengers," but I still feed them other foods simply because there are not enough food scraps in my 29 gallon. I don't keep any scavengers in my 10 gallon because my guppies are pigs and eat anything I put in there.

Can someone who has ottos reccomend a suplement food for Dvguru?

I have heard of people feeding them spirulina tablets, blanched veggies, small brine shrimp or worms. But others report no success with these foods.

One of my favorite fish stores has a 48 hour guarantee. Some larger stores such as petsmart actually have a 14 day guarantee. You should probably ask. Maybe they can give you a store credit for ottos at a later point. I would agree with stingray that you don't want to add more fish right now.

Otos don't eat brown algae.

The only one that will are SAEs.

Otos do eat zucchini and veggies, but they prefer algae overall.

Roan