HooKooDooKu
Aquarium Advice FINatic
I have a Marineland Corner 5 tank at my office. It's been cycled for over two years. Primary occupants are a pair of male guppies and some MTS. It's planted mainly with Water Sprite but a few small anuba tossed in as well in a very fine sand substrait. The tank has an air stone and a 10 watt heater with a 60 watt eql CFL hood light that is on about 10 hours per day.
The tank gets some alge, with the greatest build up interestingly on the plants. In the case of the Water Sprite, it's not a big deal as the stuff grows so fast I just have to cut out the algae covered stuff every once in a while. But anuba seem to die because algae builds up on the leaves and blocks the light. So I decided to see if I couldn't get an Oto to help out.
Now I know that Oto are supposed to be in groups, but for a 5g tank, I've got to limit it to only one. The first one the guppies seemed to constantly be bothering him and he was always flying around the tank crazily like he was on crack. So when he soon died, I wasn't all that surprised thinking he died from exhaustion or stress. So I tried another on about a month later. It seemed to be a lot calmer. After about 2 weeks, he seemed to really be getting settled in. Then suddenly he looked lethargic in the morning and was dead by lunch. After a few months, I decided to try again. I got this latest Oto during lunch on Tuesday. He seemed to immediately dive right into the algae. Over the next two days, he seems relaxed, the guppies never bothered him, and he was apparently eating well as I frequently found him with thin green poop hanging from him. Everything seemed find when I left Thursday night, but Friday morning, he was dead.
So I know that over the course of 6 months, at least 3 Oto's have died in this tank (and I'm not too sure there hasn't been a 4th). All of them seem to die within about 2 weeks (usually sooner) even though the tank has some algae AND I've dropped some Oto rounds if I ever though there wasn't enough algae in the tank.
Any ideas? Is there such a thing as an algae that can kill an Oto? Might the guppies be ganging up on him at night when I'm not there?
Any thoughts would be appreciated.
The tank gets some alge, with the greatest build up interestingly on the plants. In the case of the Water Sprite, it's not a big deal as the stuff grows so fast I just have to cut out the algae covered stuff every once in a while. But anuba seem to die because algae builds up on the leaves and blocks the light. So I decided to see if I couldn't get an Oto to help out.
Now I know that Oto are supposed to be in groups, but for a 5g tank, I've got to limit it to only one. The first one the guppies seemed to constantly be bothering him and he was always flying around the tank crazily like he was on crack. So when he soon died, I wasn't all that surprised thinking he died from exhaustion or stress. So I tried another on about a month later. It seemed to be a lot calmer. After about 2 weeks, he seemed to really be getting settled in. Then suddenly he looked lethargic in the morning and was dead by lunch. After a few months, I decided to try again. I got this latest Oto during lunch on Tuesday. He seemed to immediately dive right into the algae. Over the next two days, he seems relaxed, the guppies never bothered him, and he was apparently eating well as I frequently found him with thin green poop hanging from him. Everything seemed find when I left Thursday night, but Friday morning, he was dead.
So I know that over the course of 6 months, at least 3 Oto's have died in this tank (and I'm not too sure there hasn't been a 4th). All of them seem to die within about 2 weeks (usually sooner) even though the tank has some algae AND I've dropped some Oto rounds if I ever though there wasn't enough algae in the tank.
Any ideas? Is there such a thing as an algae that can kill an Oto? Might the guppies be ganging up on him at night when I'm not there?
Any thoughts would be appreciated.