otos for a 20G

[ciaobella7122]

I have three in my planted tank and I am totally going to get 3-6 more tomorrow. They are sooo cute and they love to play! They do an awesome job of keeping my tank clean and now that I'm more heavily planted and established I want more . Good luck to her!

 

[jpappy789]

I would advise your friend not to get any unless her tank has been cycled for about 6 months. Otos are picky with water and it is generally suggested that you have a more mature tank before getting them...

 

[zzyzx85]

No worries about the maturity/cycling of her tank. She used one of my AC sponges to seed her tank. No problems other than deaths from bad stock. She's had it up and running since January.

I was just wondering if more otos would be okay/better since I was reading up on them since FlaringShutter had some for adoption in Classifieds.

 

[DAVIDFBT]

How much more? I would only put 5 more in there. I f you have any extras, take them to the LFS.

 

[Cory Keeper]

actually thats not the issue, otos need a well established tank and lots of algae, They will pick at algae wafers if you drop a few in, but they like to eat live algae, mine won't really pick at anything else.

 

[DAVIDFBT]

^That's what I meant. You can put 50 otos in a 55G tank to themselves and not be overstocked, but they will starve and die out until the algea grows back. Unless if you have alot of surface area for algea to grow on.

I feed my otos algea wafers, but they never seem to eat them. They usually deteriorate and my Kuhli loaches eat the little chunks of it on the floor. Yet all my otos and even my B/N pleco have fat bellies.

 

[zzyzx85]

Yes, I'm aiming for 5 so I plan on picking up 3 more for her and possibly 5 for me, if they look good.

I thought jpappy was wondering if her tank was recently cycled and I answered that. It's also been planted since January so yes, there's algae in there. Her tank isn't filthy green with algae but I'm sure there's enough to make some otos happy.