The Oto Journal

Took a bit of a hiatus over the holidays. Let's try to get caught up a bit right quick. About the only thing that I did to the tanks during that time was feed and top off the water. Still have quite a few wee ones in the tank. They definately love zucchini as it barely lasts two days in the tank. There are a couple of juvenilles that I need to move into the holding tank.

The tanks themselves, jungles. Really over grown. I'm in the process of trimming and doing gravel vacs. TDS numbers are a bit on the high side from where I like them. All the CO2 bottles need to be recharged.

Will get all the tanks reset and start the new year out fresh.
 
Update 19-Jan-2012

Been a spell since I've udpated this. My apologies. I've kind of been letting things run their course so far through the start of the winter season.

The Vitattus tank has gotten severely overgrown. I started a massive trim on it yesterday. The TDS got pretty high as well. I have removed the HUGE Subwassertang wall and did a small vac of that half of the tank. Had to give it a good shaking out to make sure none of the Oto fry guys were in there. Hopefully they all left. I have submerged in a bowl of water just in case. I'll give the wall a good trimming and get it back in place today. Next will be a thinning of the Crypt jungle. The Bacopa has as well went crazy. There are shoots all over every stem. Almost like this tank went on steroids or something. The funny thing is, I have dosed ferts or refreshed the CO2 in the tank during this run. Quite interesting.

As for the fry, looks to be around (20) or so that may have made it. Hard to get a good count at the moment. A few are big enough to move over to the holding tank now.

I'll get the tank pieced back together and get it back on it's normal routine. It was good to see what would happen by just doing top offs on it.

The Macrosphilus still haven't got their act together. I did a trim on thier tank and put some more plants in there for them. Guys still being distracted with each other. Have not split them up yet even though I keep telling myself I need to. I'm trying to be as patient as possible with them. I'm pretty sure the ladies are losing patience. :)

One major goal that I would like to see accomplished this year is to find both O. Flexilis and Mimulus. Of course a Cocama spawn is still on the list, but I have no control on that one.
 
The great wall of Sub has crumbled. Wow was there a ton of it! That side of the tank looks so bare now. :) All the babes are extremely active after the work done. Zipping all over the place. It's really neat to watch as there are all different sizes of wee ones. I'll give it a couple of days and then I'll do the other half of the tank; the crypt jungle. I noticed one mother crypt has a double spathe under water. Pretty kewl I must say.
 
Are you going to be selling your oto fry when they are big enough? I would love to get some tank raised ones. I'm right now experiencing the horror stories of wild caught ones.
 
Yes, I will be rehoming as soon as they are big enough.
 
Revamp of tank is now complete. Just have to let the dust settle and let things take their course. CO2 recharged and in place. She's a bare tank now. :) Looks that way at least. I'll snap a new tank shot tomorrow.Wee ones seem unphased by all the commotion that was going on around them. A few of them even landed on my hand as I was replanting.
 
Thanks and sry to hear about your wee ones. :(
 
Update 25-Jan-2012

Well I got a nice little surprise today. Got home and checked on things and look what we found:

OtoEggs3_012512.jpg


OtoEggs2_012512.jpg


And even one on the glass:
OtoEggs1_012512.jpg


I didn't originally notice them. I went to check on the tank and noticed that the MM that I had "attempted" to plant was gone. When I got to looking around, that's when I found the first eggs.

It's good to see that all the hacking that I did to this tank had no effect. I was going to replant the MM and adust the airstone back but if the spawn is ongoing, I don't want to interupt it any more than I already did.

Here is the tank after the hack. Notice the wall of Subwassertang is soooooo small now.
OtoHome_012512.jpg
 
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