The Oto Journal

Update 14-Nov-2010

More spawing going on now in the holding tank. And here I was about to do some more work with the rest of the sand in there. Oh well...that will have to wait a few more days.

Have to go back and check the ages of the juvies in the main tank. They may be old enough to move over now. Which would be interesting with all the other little ones over there. ;o)
 
Most of the eggs in the holding tank are non-viable. :( That was a pretty big blow. Only a few left to hatch tomorrow.

Topping off tanks today with minimal maintenance. Will start to do a pretty big gravel vac in the Macrospilus tank tomorrow. Since there are CRS in this tank, I'm going to be doing something a little different. I'm going to filter out the gunk and put the water back in. Only since the tank was just topped off and the water parms are perfect.
 
Well the coffee filter idea proved ineffective. The idea was pull out a gallon at a time, filter, and place back in the tank. Within just a few square inches, I pulled out all kinds of gunk. That part was successful. It was the filtering part that didn't go well.

The filter would clog up and thus be uneffective. I managed to only filter 1/2 gallon. I think my new plan will be to pull out a gallon and let it settle and then run as much through the filter as possible. This should be more stable.

In case you're wondering why I am doing it this way, is that I am trying to do a major ground cleaning without a major water change due to the tank also houses CRS/CBS. It would not be good for them. Trying to pull out the goodies which also includes the critters that I have recently discovered in there. Harmless yes, eyesore...yes...can't affect the Oto breeding so erring on the side of caution.

I'd like to come up with a faster way to filter the gunk out. I'll rack the brain a little more. But if anyone has any other idears, I'm all ears. :troll:
 
I'm using a vac to remove all the detrius and critters from the substrate. I just have to filter all that out and pour the water back in.
 
Wowsers is that a little on the pricey side! lol Nifty idear though.
 
Update 18-Nov-2010

Another spawn in the holding tank today. So far I was able to count (41) eggs however (6) were already non-viable. Hopefully this batch will fair much better than the last. The last spawn wound up a complete fail.

Here's a shot from today:
OtoEggs1_111810.jpg


Came up with another idea for filtering out the Macrospilus tank like I want. I gravel vac'd into (2) one gallon jugs. I'm going to let this settle for a couple of hours and the drip the water back into the tank through the filter. No idea why I didn't think of doing it that way at first but we'll see.
 
Update 20-Nov-2010

Well this is a rather unique situation. I was expecting hatching today in the holding tank so made my morning rounds to check on things. It's an egg-splosion down there. Yet more spawning going on in the holding tank. This spawn is a little different than the others in this tank as it appears they aren't going to be holding much back this time. The amount of eggs so far will make this the largest single day spawn.

I didn't spend much time observing since they are still in progress. I did notice a couple non-viable eggs though. I'm beginning to wonder, if you can imagine this, that there is just too much activity and competetion for the males to handle leading to the non vertilized eggs? Just a thought. I know there are at least (3) egg laying la-fems in here and if they are all spawning at the same time as before ... I can only imagine.

Will check again later in the day and see what we get. Between newly hatched fry and freshly laid eggs, this is going to be a busy tank for the next few days. I won't be moving juvies over just yet. Need to go back and check their age and see if they are ready for new homes.
 
Friends, I can honestly say in a year and a half of doing this, I have never seen anything of likes of what is in the holding tank. Never. I know Mama Oto over in the main tank has had her share of spawns but it just doesn't compare. I'd be willing to bet that there were at least (3) females involved with this spawn session. Absolutely no way of counting the eggs. There are just that many. And, they are litterally everywhere to include the sand! Yes, you read right, they are even laid on the sand!

There are quite a few non-viable eggs and most of those are the ones on the substrate. However, there are still a ton on the sand bed that are good. It seems that almost every plant has eggs on them. No eggs on the glass or driftwood though which I find surprising in that they are on the sand. Very odd.

I'm also wondering if the amount of non-viable ones could be partially my fault as I walked in on them while the spawn was in progress. Just a hunch. I snapped off quite a few shots and getting ready to go through them and see what comes out. There's a bit of current going through the tank due to water level so we'll see what turns out.

Stand by....
 
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