I dunno.... I had a pair in my 29 gl - one looking like yours, the other much skinnier. The fat one died. My daughter also had a pair. One got really large and round, the other stayed skinny. The fat one died. I wonder if we are doing something wrong? My remaining 4 otos (spread in 3 tanks) are all "skinny" (but with round bellies), very active, and I have had them for nearly 6 months.
Big fat Otocinclus
- Thread starter gregjsmith
- Start date
If it's belly is not sunk in, and it is otherwise moving around normally, not putting it's mouth on the food means it is not hungry. If it is really fat it could be a gravid female looking for a mate. Males do have a slimmer profile than females, but even still they should have a slight roundedness to them, if they are skinny or hollowed they may have lost the bacteria needed to digest their food. If you have a healthy one in the tank sometimes they can reacquire the needed gut bacteria but the time period of no nutrition puts them at a disadvantage.
Shipping is particularly hard on these guys, because they are depended on the gut bacteria to break down their food. They often lose that in shipping because of lack of food, and even when they get food again they can't gain nutrition from it unless they can regain that intestinal flora. Some die shortly after this hardship and others live a bit longer. Don't assume that your practices are to blame because they have been stressed in this way before you got them and don't live as long as they would.
Obtaining them from a retailer that knows their needs and target feeds them with algae wafers or something like that when they first get them in can help their survival rates. But if the store doesn't give them anything and makes them depend on the tank's biofilm they may not get enough to multiply the bacteria fast enough for them all to recover.
Shipping is particularly hard on these guys, because they are depended on the gut bacteria to break down their food. They often lose that in shipping because of lack of food, and even when they get food again they can't gain nutrition from it unless they can regain that intestinal flora. Some die shortly after this hardship and others live a bit longer. Don't assume that your practices are to blame because they have been stressed in this way before you got them and don't live as long as they would.
Obtaining them from a retailer that knows their needs and target feeds them with algae wafers or something like that when they first get them in can help their survival rates. But if the store doesn't give them anything and makes them depend on the tank's biofilm they may not get enough to multiply the bacteria fast enough for them all to recover.
