What kind of bottom-dweller should I get??

[QTOFFER]

Thanks, TankGirl, for the advice!!

My lfs gets new fish on Tuesdays - that's why I only shop there on Sundays or Mondays! Sometimes there's not much to choose from, it's alot easier to tell the healthy fish from the sick ones. For example, the aeneus cories didn't look too chipper yesterday and I was steered away from them by the lfs personnel.

I'm going to buy some algae wafers for the otos since the Q-tank was recently sterilized.

And yea, the cories are neat. I'm surprised how curious and unafraid they are - they come right up to the front of the tank and really don't hide in the plastic log at all. They also do this funny thing with their eyes - like they're blinking!

 

[TankGirl]

Often my LFS will steer me away from the otos, and will actually pull out the log book of in-store tank deaths to see how their latest batch of otos is doing! I appreciate that kind of service, and wait until they have some that have been there for a while, though this is tricky, because they are popular and they don't have them all of the time.

Also, I don't know if you are familiar with them, but the corys will zip to the surface occasionally and will gulp a bit of air. This is perfectly normal behavior, but if they are doing it a lot it could mean you have poor oxygen or some "dead" spots in the water that could use some more movement.