Amazing Otos!

Thanks everyone. I'm a little worried now that the Otos aren't getting enough to eat. I have 6 zebra danios and 3 otos in my 10G.


I put a thin cucumber slice in there 2 days ago, and the danios swarmed it almost immediately. I haven't seen any of my Otos take a bite from it yet, so I dropped in an algae wafer this morning and again the Danios were on it within seconds. They're hogging all the food! What should I do?
 
i've got a bit of an algae problem in my tank and i have been looking for otos at my LFS. theres only one that i know of that carries it, and last time i looked, they had a huge tankful! but for now i wait. black phantom tetras seem to be popular also, haven't been able to get my hands on more of them.
 
evster said:
Thanks everyone. I'm a little worried now that the Otos aren't getting enough to eat. I have 6 zebra danios and 3 otos in my 10G.


I put a thin cucumber slice in there 2 days ago, and the danios swarmed it almost immediately. I haven't seen any of my Otos take a bite from it yet, so I dropped in an algae wafer this morning and again the Danios were on it within seconds. They're hogging all the food! What should I do?
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I found my oto's were picky eaters..they loved algae but didn't eat much else..it takes them time to figure out what is food.

I actually had a trio that feasted on brown algae..and refused to eat anything else.

I eventually was forced to move them to an established tank that had a bit of diatom(brown algae) they ate that until the angels disovered them...this is where I found out not to mix angels with oto's.
 
We started out with 4 ottos, one of them died a couple days after we got them.
The 3 that were left completely cleaned my b/fs 29 gallon of brown algae. Unfortunately when the brown algae ran out they did NOT want to eat anything else and 1 of them died.
The two that were left I put in my 10 gallon. Unfortunately one of them wouldn't eat, even though there was food and died pretty quick.
One is left. I have good lighting on my tank so I have plenty of algae to keep him eating good and he's fat and healthy! I know they're supposed to be in groups but he never seemed to hang out with the others and I don't want to risk putting more in there and them starving to death because they depleted the algae. They also seem to eat some of the green algae that sticks to the glass, though not hair algae, but mine liked brown the best.
I don't think them dying necessarily means low water quality, though they're sensitive to bad water, like everyone else said, the death rate in general is pretty high. I wouldn't buy any of these again unless there is a LARGE source of algae, because you can't count on them eating supplemental foods and they will deplete their source of algae within a few weeks if not days (depending on how much you have)
My 10 has good lighting and only one small plant, so a large amount of algae growth. All by himself he keeps the algae to a minimum. The amount of visible algae never grows and he stays well fed and happy.
 
I have had 6 for a month and so far so good. They love zucchini and canned spinach (salt-free) as well as algae. It takes a while (as much as a day or two) for them to recognize a new type of food as a food item, but when they do, watch out! They eat all the time. I don't know where they put it all away.
 
Well I guess I just didn't give them enough time with the cucumber. I will put another one in there tomorrow and this time leave it for a full 2-3 days. The Danios seemed to stop picking at it after it had been in there for a while so maybe it will work.

I'm definitely not doing another algae wafer though. My Danios tore through it within a couple hours!
 
Yeah, I tried a couple in my 20 gallon and it was a disaster. I think my Kribensis ate them because they literally vanished overnight. I didn't even find any remains. Even looked on the floor...nothing.:huh:

I figured that was a sign that Otto's weren't for me. lol
 
Peel the skin off and remove the seeds. They have been hanging on it since I put it in there a bit ago. I used an airline suction cup and just put the clip through the cucumber and stuck it to the glass. I learned that trick today on one of these forums.
 
my oto's have been alive for almost 2 months and seem to be really happy. I keep my light on in the tank to help grow more brown algae for them.

I sometimes give them a tiny tiny algae wafer and cucumbers. they take forever to find new food though. little retards.

I don't see why everyone has such hard problems with them. they seem pretty tough to me. maybe I'm just a supremely awesome fish keeper. (haha, I'm not this egotistical. just joking)
 
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