Moving Otos between tanks

[libertybelle]

I have two tanks running at the moment a 10g red cherry shrimp tank and a 29g planted community with a dozen tetras and a Siamese algae eater. I also had two Otos in the 29 gallon and I adore their antics. I have had no luck with them eating any supplemental food or veggies and what I do put in there gets demolished by the tetras and sae before they get to it. Even so they have round bellies so I guess the algae and biofilm is sustaining the pair just fine.

Knowing they are schoolers but that they can be difficult to feed I picked up two more and put them in the red cherry shrimp tank to ensure they were healthy for a few weeks. I consider it semi quarantine because there are no other fish in the tank and I have read that shrimp and fish are unlikely to pass things between them and this way there is plenty of algae for the new guys. I eventually moved the two older Otos into the shrimp tank as part of quarantine procedure to ensure that there was nothing that the new Otos were immune to that would effect my current fish.

So here is the problem... I adore having Otos in my shrimp tank now. They seem to enjoy the quieter environment and the larger group and without the SAE around one of them has even taken to munching on the shrimp pellets/veggies. That said, I know keeping 4 Otos in a 10 gallon tank probably isn’t sustainable in the long run when only one of them has any interest in supplemental foods.

I don’t want to split up the group, so here is the question. The two tanks have identical parameters as far as I can tell. Low stocking and regular water changes keep both tanks very close in parameters to the source water. Even so, would it be too stressful to move them every couple months to the other tank so that they don’t run low on natural algae / biofilm to munch on? With the parameters being the same and me not being concerned about mixing water I wouldn’t even have to net them, just catch them in a large cup and move them over so it would just be the stress of the change in scenery that I would be concerned about.

Thoughts? Anyone else rotated an algae eating crew between two tanks?!

I really love these otos adorable behavior and if I thought I could feed them properly I would totally have a school of them in both tanks!

 

[kashif314]

Its not the identical parameters only but the stress of new environment as well. You catch them with net or cup still new environment every few months is stressful. You can use a product call "Bacter Ae" and you won't run out of biofilm in your tank. Also have you tried green leaves like spinach to them? If one of them started eating then others will too. Let them settle down with shrimps and they will be good and will eat foods you will offer. I am not an expert but my suggestion is to keep them in one permanent home.

 

[libertybelle]

I’ve tried various pellets, spinach, that seaweed for algae eaters (what a mess), cucumber, zucchini, carrots... maybe a few other things. All the veggies blanched and left in for around a day. it’s been quite some time and it’s still only one of the older ones that will touch anything supplemental (they’re slightly different sizes so I can tell it’s just one of them.)

I guess I’ll just move them all back to the 29 after quarantine as I originally intended so I don’t need to worry about supplemental feeding as much. As much as I love otos in the shrimp tank they act soooo much happier with a few buddies not to mention how much they love zipping from one end of the tank to the other that I can’t bring myself to just keep 2 in a 10 gallon.