Oto and/or Panda Cory feeding requirements

[Karackle]

Hi everyone, quick question, I'm thinking about putting a pair of otos and/or panda (dwarf) cories in my 5 gallon planted tank that currently houses 1 male Betta. The tank seems pretty well balance so far, the plants are growing like mad, but there's not a ton algae so I was wondering if either otos or cories or both will eat algae wafers or other supplements.

Thanks!!!

 

[neilanh]

I've never had my otos eat algae wafers, or any prepared foods before now that I think about it. They will graze on blanched fresh veggies, however.

Cories will eat store-bought foods pretty easily, however.

 

[Karackle]

Cool, thanks for the input, that's good to know.

If anyone has had different experience with Otos and/or cories and what they'll eat i'd still like to hear that as well.

Thanks!

 

[Purrbox]

Cories are not algae eaters, so if you're wanting a fish to help with algae control you'd want to go with the otos.

 

[Jacko]

Otos are herbivorous fish, they usually chow down on the diatom/brown algae but usually only eat microscopic forms of the others. So, baby algae bits, they help to keep algae at a decent pace so that it won't grow more and sometimes will rid the tank of it entirely.

Cories on the other hand are mainly carnivores, they are a schooling fish too and best not kept alone or in groups below 4. I have 1 corydoras elegans I saved from my uncles 10 gallon goldfish tank and plan to either add him to my mom's tank or get more of them for mine. I have fed mine shrimp pellets as a staple and they get the usual supplements like the rest of my tank, live tubifex and BS, frozen mysis shrimp, bloodworms and BS. They are also a cat that has soft barbels and if kept on gravel will wear them down and could open it up to secondary infections, so they really need sand or round gravel.

For your tank, I would recomend a couple of otos since they both stay smaller than cories and fit better in a smaller tank than cories do.

 

[Karackle]

Thanks for the input! I actually have very little algae, so I was more worried that there would NOT be enough food in the tank for the Ottos, rather than looking for something to eat my algae.

 

[Jacko]

Otos are, fortunatly, very easy to supplement in their dietary needs. I have had success with apples, cucumber, lettuce, zuchini and I have recently learned that mine love dried amazon sword leaves. Since I have never seen this elsewhere I'll explain, during my last water change/tank clean I trimmed my amazon sword leaves so that they would stay in a better bush shape, I decided to experiement and set the leaves out to dry, after they were dry I put them back in the tank and they had the same texture and feel as blanched lettuce, my otos demolished a single leaf in a day and a half.

 

[Karackle]

Wow, that's great to know! Unfortunately I don't have amazon swords, though i do have a surplus of some of my stem plants, and of course lettuce, apples and cucumber are usually on hand in my apartment. So thank you! It's great to know i can easily supplement the little guys