The Oto Journal

Wow so they do breed at higher ph than 6.8.
Yes...both tanks where they have actively bred are sitting at 7.4.


I've kind of skimmed through this and I'm sure you've mentioned it somewhere, but how do you sex them?
When they are mature, the females will be larger - much more of a rounded belly than the males.
 
Update 03-Jun-2010

Been a spell since any updates. Well...not really a whole lot going on at the moment.

Just routine maintenance in all the tanks. Removed one C. Wendtii from the Vittatus tank. Might have to remove a couple more. Since last thinning of the jungle, it has just blown up. Half the tank is Crypts. The two females are just enormous.

I think mama oto is going to split if she doesn't unload soon. I'm thinking I have two variables going on here. The first is the amount of babies in the tank. Just a ton of em in here. Takes me back to last time when there was a large brood. After I moved a majority of them, she dropped over 100 eggs.

The second variable is regarding the outside environment. Now last year at this time, we were running the AC for my father. This kept the environment pretty fresh and cool. Right now, we still haven't turned it on. Room conditions are currently sitting at 74F and nearly 60% humidity. These are higher than normal. I'm going to start by using a couple of fans down there and see if I can get some circulation going and removing some of the humidity. We'll probably be turning the air on soon but in the mean time, I have to come up with something else.

The Cocama's continue to progress well. Pretty active. All look about the same size. Noone standing out just yet. I'm sure hoping that there is at least one male and one female. As it looks now, I might have four males. Youch. I'm contimplating looking to get a few more from another source to ensure I have a mix. We'll see. Still a couple months to go before a positive ID can be made.

That's it for now. Stay tuned.
 
AMAZING! Seriously some great stuff here, makes me want to start breeding some otos
 
Update 28-June-2010

Well back from holiday and as expected, I wasn't too happy with what I found. We had a different house sitter this time. While overall she did a good job, there were casulties:

The worst tank was the holding tank. I found (4) dead and the state of the tank was bad. The corpses were fuzzed over so they had been there for a spell. To make it worse, we spoke to the person on the phone yesterday while on our way home and was told that all was fine. Immediate 50% water change and stirred up the sand bed. Also had to move the huge java fern out of the way and vac'd around that area. Running (2) air stones in here at the moment to increase the O2 content since the sand was stirred up. Bad, bad, bad.

Next was the Cocama tank. While I didn't lose any of my little guys, the tank is absolutely disgusting. There is crudded up food all over the place. Way too much food fed. Have some fresh water getting ready to do a 25% wc.

Over in the Vittatus breeder, the only casulties were a Brigg and (2) tiger shrimp. Overall state of the tank was ok, but I'm sure the NH3 level was high due to the deaths. Immediate 25% water change. Running air stone currently.

Other tanks had no losses and seemed ok. Working on getting them cleaned up and water changes.

Plants in all tanks grew very well during that spell. Will have to do alot of trimming in the coming days.

On a good note, I was able to find homes for (25) little guys as well today. Wound up selling them for $4/each. They wanted more but had to hold some back to offer to fellow fishy friends out here.

New zucchini prepping now.
 
I'm sorry you came home to a mess. My worst fish disaster was due to a sitter overfeeding. Not really unexpected with non-fish people but they don't know what to look for, dead fish & snalis can be hard to spot.

Congrats on the sale
 
Yeah...good point. I just did the water change on the Cocama tank. If it weren't for losing fish in the holding tank, I would say that this one was the worse. Wow! Had to give the filter a good cleaning too. Plants had to be uprooted to do a gravel vac. So it's back to scaping again. All seems to be ok with them. They are snarfing the zuc pretty quickly. Boiling up more to freeze now.

Unsolicited sales are always the best eh? ;o) I'm getting ready to place a post for some more to make more room for new arrivals.
 
Hope things are looking a little brighter after some of your magic maintenance James!
 
Update 09-July-2010

Things getting back to normal again. Goodness.

Over in the Vittatus tank, mama still waiting. I will start moving juvies over to the holding tank this weekend. Most are ready to move over. Had to do some trimming yesterday. I think it's time to also cut back the Suesswassertang and Downoi.

Still have a little more work to do in the Cocama and Holding tanks. Will be doing larger than normal water changes this weekend in both these tanks. I may have to spit up the huge Java Fern in the holding tank. It is nearly taking up an entire side. I know they love to hide in there so I may just continue to work around it.

Have several pieces of plants still floating on the top. I may just rid myself of these. I have a habit of trimming and replanting but leaving the other portion floating.

Started dosing ferts again in all tanks. I hadn't done this since returning from holiday. Wanted to ensure the water quality was good before resuming.
 
Update 14-Jul-2010

Activity levels are once again picking up in the tanks. This is a good sign that things are getting back to normal.

Mom and Pop Oto in the Vittatus tank are hanging out again. The juvies are just swarming all over the place including one of the other adult females. Will be thinning the Crypt jungle in here today. The Suesswassertang and Downoi will also be trimmed. I might add Duckweed hunting as well.

The Cocamas have found themselves a nice spot. On the backside of the heater of all places. Thought for sure they would go for the hidden nook that I created with the driftwood and plants. But...that's what they do...they pick their spots regardless of what we make for them. This tank still needs a lot of help. I don't understand how this guy went sooo bad during the spell that I was gone. I'm going to be looking to remove the Flourite for something different. I knew I should have put them in the SMS tank instead. It was a gamble.

The holding tank is looking a little bare. I have rehomed most of those little fellers. Have a few sub adults left. Prepping tank for next arrival of juvies. I'm still debating on this rather large Java Fern that is in there. I'm toying with the idea of removing it all together and starting with a smaller piece and adding a planting of Trident. I just feel it has outgrown the tank if one can believe that.

I'm soon to be looking into building a rack for 10g tanks. Here I will house some other varieties of Otos and see if I can continue with my experiments.
 
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