The Oto Journal

Update: 15-Jan-2013

Question: How do you make short work of a planned tank maintenance day?
Answer: Walk in on a spawn in progress!

Soon as I walked into the fish room to grab some jugs to fill, I caught one of the male Otos swimming off. Closer look at the tank and found a bunch of eggs in the Bacopa area. I immediately grabbed up the jugs and left the room.

I'll have to check my notes, but I think this is the first time I've had (3) spawns this close together. Now...will go back to my normal deal of a water change before they hatch which will be tomorrow afternoon.
 
Update 17-Jan-2013

And we have a hatching today.

Went down last night and did the water change right before the lights went out. Came home today and was able to visibly count (19) new wigglers lounging around. Took my usual photos and will check them out when I get back from the gym. There was one shot I hope turned out. There was a fry guy from each of the three spawns right next to each other. Looked pretty kewl.
 
Update 18-Jan-2013

Count goes up today. Saw (23) new wigglers on the glass. Trying something a little different this time around. I went ahead and administered the first powder feeding a day early. Wondering if by chance this may help with getting better results. If anything, the others in the tank will have lots to graze on. :)

Got lucky as well with the water change. With all the rain we have had lately, our well water is turning to the brown side. I filled all the jugs up the other day so have plenty of good water to conduct all other WCs tomorrow as planned.

Now for the bad news. The "money" shot from yesterday was bad. :( Man I wished that would have turned out.
 
Update 10-Mar-2013

I'm thoroughly convinced now that my fishy friends have ESP.

Why you ask? Well simple....today I had planned to go in and trim the main breeder, do a good vac and replant the Sub wall. Guess what? Yep...a spawn in progress. :)

I'd really like to know how they do it? And it was random this time as I just this morning decided to do the work on the tank. Unlike before where I would pick a date. Too funny.

I didn't bother trying to count eggs yet since it's in progress. The Bacopa area seems to be the point of focus right now.
 
Late check on things last night before lights out and all is well. I didn't stay too long so I didn't count eggs as yet. Just more of an observation at this point. I'm thinking this may have been a spawn from the young female in the tank. I found (1) egg on the front glass and (2) on the back. This is highly unusual which makes me believe it is the young one.

Another interesting note in regards to the plants. This will be another spawn where there are very minimal to no eggs located on the Acmella repens or Ludwigia atlantis. Very interesting and not sure why. That area of the tank was a the #2 egg area early on. It has become #3 now behind the Bacopa monnieri and Crypt jungle respectively. I think I will pull those two plants out and try to score some L. ovalis to replace them.

After this batch grows up, I will need to thin out the Crypts again and at that point I will replace (or put back in that is) the Sub wall. That's a big fry trap that's missing. I may just attempt to put it in today, but don't think I'll be able to squeeze the time in to do so.
 
Update 14-Mar-2013

Much bigger spawn than I thought. I managed to count (48) wigglers yesterday right before the lights went out. I would say a good 80% of them are in and around the Bacopa area and mostly all wee ones are on the glass. This is another unusual aspect for this batch. Now normally they all eventually migrate to the glass, but it usually takes some time. It's more common to find them staying on the plants for the first couple of days. Interesting.
 
Update 17-Mar-2013

Wasn't finding very many wee ones in the tank so I started questioning my food availability for them. I decided I needed to move some of the Green shrimp out of the tank. Might have turned out to be a good decision as there were a lot more in there than I thought. Pulled out a good 30+ small ones out of there. Might shoot for more today or tomorrow to be safe.

As I was rumaging through the plants, I would stir up the Oto fry and the good news is that there are still good numbers alive in there. Was funny watching them swarm out of the crypts as I used a bamboo skewer to help flush out the shrimp. :)

Mixed up the first batch of powder feed and fed accordingly. Gave the big areas a nice coating.
 
Update 24-Mar-2013

Time for some drastic action in the main breeder. Algae has really set in. I've always had a little bit of BBA but it has not really bothered me. Now, hair algae has set in and grow rampant. I had to take action even with the wee ones in the tank. I'm pulling out all the plants and getting rid of the most infected leaves. The hard plant will be the Littorella uniflora. Will have to very carefully rub it off so as to not damage the plant.

I just removed all the crypts and I found all the wee ones. Counted just over (20). Yay! Good batch even though still not 50%. Real test will be to see how they do with this tank maintenance. It's gonna be a big hit. Will also be gravel vac'ing to get the TDS down as well. I will also need to scrape the glass for the BBA but will leave the back alone for now. Will just have to provide plenty of powder food for now until things can build back up.

Pulling even more shrimp out as well. That will lighten the load of this tank considerably. Two ladies are ready to pop so need to get things back in order for them. :)
 
Man did I stir up a hornet's nest. :)

All the plants are now out of the tank. There are Oto's and shrimp swimming all over the place. It's real funny to watch as an adult shrimp will settle somewhere and out of the blue a baby Oto will swim right into it. Sometimes even landing on the shrimp. It only lasts for just about a second but pretty funny to see an Oto on a shrimp. I snapped a couple of blurry pics but might post them anyway.

The wee Otos are just litterally working over every inch of the tank. The substrate looks like someone kicked over an ant hill.

Have all the plants cleaned and ready to go back in. Now just have to wait to vac out more of the substrate. Long process but hopefully be back to normall in a few hours.
 
update 08-Apr-2013

well i'll be........

working in another breeder now. tear out half the tank. get a good gravel vac going. while waiting for the dust to clear...what do i spy...but a little fry...one fry, two fry, three fry...four....got six right now and hope i count more. :)

now i wonder if i sucked any up? dont think so as its a deep vac but will double check to make sure.
 
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