quick question about oto

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sirBubbly

Aquarium Advice Apprentice
Joined
Sep 4, 2005
Messages
22
Location
USA
if oto's are on the glass of your aquarium does it mean they are eating algae?
 
Mine to a typewriter motion up and down when they are eating. Quite entertaining. When they are resting they either hangout in one place on the glass for awhile or "stand" on their front fins and hang onto a plant. (IME)
 
i just got them today and i think they are already my favorite fish.
 
They are really cool. I had two but one died during a mini-cycle. I'm going to get another when I hit the petstore if they have any in stock.
 
Mine seem to like ramain lettuce. The cool thing IMHO is that otocinclus catfish stay small. So you can throw six of them into a 55 gal to help keep things clean.

Anyone ever had oto fry? They would be fun to breed.
 
i read up on oto breeding and you need at least six, more males than females and it takes them like a whole day to lay all the eggs.
 
I was reading about their breeding habits before I got them and it says that if you have a large planted aquarium and a good school they will breed well.
 
I dont really know, but I think they lay their eggs on somthing then the male fertlizes, so you may not ever see the eggs.

Personally I think that if you want to breed them put them in a 10-20gallon planted species tank and wait :) Moving them around will proably just stress them and if you move them to a standard breeding tank (not planted) they may not like it much. But I havn't tried, hopfully somone else with more experience with respond.
 
they are one of the best algae eaters around, and sense thats there main diet in the wild they do a pretty good job. of course this is only from what i've read i dont really have any experience with them yet.
 
They have small mouths so it takes them awhile to clean what a pleco would clean in a few minutes :) but they dont get huge and they rarly stop eating. I love them much more then regular plecos.
 
There are pros and cons to oto's. Pro: They do eat algea. Pro: They don't produce nearly the amount of waste that Pleco's do (I had a pleco, in just one night he/she could cover the who bottom of the tank in poop) Con: Oto's are fragile, if your tank isn't cycled or if the water's not right they will usually die. Con: They don't eat as much as Pleco's so you will need several.

All in all, when I set a tank up again I think I'm going to go with an army of Oto's approach.

Hope that helps.
 
I have had otocinclus for a while and even had them spawn once or twice. As has been said previously they are great fish for cleaning some types of algae in an aquarium. They won't touch hair algae (you could try Siamese algae eaters or American-flag Fish for that) but they will consume the more common types. When they are eating, which is most of the time, you will see them scraping along the surface of plants or glass. They are best kept in groups because they are social fish and a good rule of thumb is to get one oto for every ten gallons. Otos are sensitive to water conditions and can get stressed easily so water quality is important. If you are going to buy some at a pet store, make sure they have been there for a few days so that they have had a chance to recover from being shipped. In my experience otos can be active during the day or they can just sit on a leaf for a while. Females are generally larger than males and are more rounded. Otos are egg scatterers so you may want to provide plenty of cover if you want them to spawn successfully.
 
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