How often to feed Ottos?

Rava

Rava

Betta Babe
Dec 26, 2002
223
0
16
CA
I bought an otto today, and some pellet food for him. He lives in my sister's 2.5 gallon with one male betta right now, as that tank needs him for the algae! He'll move to my 5 gal. as he grows. Anyway... The 2.5 gallon has minor algae growing up on all the corners, and some on the rocks in the bottom. Is algae sufficient for him or should he alwats get pellet food regardless of the amount in the tank? The food container says once daily, but I wasn't sure if that was too much. Any guidance on that would be great. :) Thanks!

I also did a gravel vac job today! You know, I had NO idea how fun vaccuming up fish poop is!!! I spent like an hour between the 2.5 and 5 gallon tank! I was just facinated that a piece of tubing (that originally came with another tank as part of the undergravel filter!) put in some water could do that! It did suck getting gravel stuck in there, though. :P lol What fun though! And so relaxing! Don't know why I've never tried that before... :D
 
Depends on the type of algae. Otos are really good with soft algae, but the harder stuff like thread, bba, green spot algae they can't eat.

If you have plenty of soft algae, watch to see if he's eating it, what better way to know, then you probably don't need to supplement his diet. If he's not eating it, i.e. it's too hard for his sucker mouth, then you'll need to provide a tiny piece of algae pellet in the evening (their officially nocturnal, not that mine aren't active all the time)
 
Okay, I *think* I have brown algae in the tank, and he appears to be getting it off quite easily. :) He's happily sucking in the corner right now, and he's cleared one corner almost top to bottom since yesterday. I don't know if I'd describe my algae as plentiful, but it's in all the corners right now, so he should have enough to eat and work on for awhile. If I notice he doesn't seem to be getting enough, do I chop up one pellet for him? They're about the size of an aspirin, just a tad smaller.

Thanks so much for your help! :)
 
I'd cut about a 2mm piece from the pellet and drop it in. that'd probably be a big meal for an oto :p just drop it in the tank before lights out and he'll find it overnight. Repeat every third day or so so he stays motivated to eat algae.
 
Rava said:
Okay, I *think* I have brown algae in the tank, and he appears to be getting it off quite easily. :) He's happily sucking in the corner right now, and he's cleared one corner almost top to bottom since yesterday. I don't know if I'd describe my algae as plentiful, but it's in all the corners right now, so he should have enough to eat and work on for awhile. If I notice he doesn't seem to be getting enough, do I chop up one pellet for him? They're about the size of an aspirin, just a tad smaller.

Thanks so much for your help! :)
Click to expand...

Does your "brown" algae look like THIS

That rock is supposed to be an off white. my Oto cat had my tank completely clean in about a week.
 
Thank you, Chico! You are our LFS store worker hero! :D

Jam- It's hard for me to see from your picture, but it does look similar. I took some pictures of my algae so y'all can give your assessment. :) And, since I was back there ya know... Otto had his first photo shoot too. :D So here are the pictures!

algaeonwall.jpg


algae2.jpg


algaecorner.jpg


Otto.jpg
 
Are the pellets meat based like shrimp pellets or are they algae wafers? You'd obvioulsy want one that his vegetable based....
 
Ya know, while I agree with you Leo, darned if my Otos don't occasionally scramble with the cories for the shrimp pellets!

Although since I've been fighting brown algae this past couple months that's stopped.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
AquariaCentral.com
Top Bottom