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  L# Breeding ottos
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SubscribeBreeding ottos
sunspotkat
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I was interested in learning more about breeding ottos (otocinclus vittatus). I have checked the profile here and done some web searches. I was wondering is any FP members have bred these fish and what their experiences were.

Thanks!

- Meow -
Post InfoPosted 05-Jan-2007 21:22Profile PM Edit Report 
Cup_of_Lifenoodles
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I believe I have bred otocinclus flexilis, a somewhat closely related species, though it could possibly have been aspidoras eggs.
Post InfoPosted 05-Jan-2007 22:44Profile AIM MSN PM Edit Delete Report 
Natalie
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In some of the display tanks at the store where I worked, sometimes a whole bunch of little Otos would just pop up among the plants one day. That happened at least five times.

I think that's actually how most Oto spawnings happen, by accident.



I'm not your neighbor, you Bakersfield trash.
Post InfoPosted 06-Jan-2007 03:53Profile Homepage AIM MSN PM Edit Delete Report 
jasonpisani
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I have 5 Otos in my heavily planted tank & i just wish to see some small ones, but i think it's nearly impossible, as i have a few Rummynose Tetra, that will chase anything small & i also think that it's quite hard & you need to be LUCKY.

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Post InfoPosted 06-Jan-2007 14:21Profile MSN PM Edit Delete Report 
illustrae
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My ottos once spawned by accident in my shrimp tank. Unfortunately, they only lived for a few weeks, I think due to malnutrition. Very clean water, a good food supply, and adults that feel safe and secure seem to be requirements for breeding. Once you have fry, make sure you are able to feed them infusoria, green water, blanched veggies,etc. while still keeping the water quality crystal clear.

Hoping that there must be a word for everything I mean...
Post InfoPosted 08-Jan-2007 20:57Profile AIM PM Edit Delete Report 
sunspotkat
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Cool. Thanks for the replies. I have heard that they can be a little difficult to breed. What I was thinking about doing is setting a group of about 6-8 up in a 20 gallon long tank all by themselves with lots of broad leaved fake plants. That way they have tons of space and no stress from any other fish. I thought I'd use those "silk" type fake plants. They look pretty realistic and then I could remove any eggs on the plants and put them in a special smaller tank to hatch without damaging the roots like I would with a real plant. Just move the whole plant. I have heard that they like a decent current so I was going to get a fliter that was a little bigger than what I needed so the water will be super clean and the bigger filter will produce a slightly stronger current for them.

I think I have a male and female right now. I'm not sure if they have spawned though. I found some eggs one morning on the anubias plant that's in there but by the time I got something together to move the eggs to, they had been eaten. I have no idea if they were otto eggs or not. I also have 1 male and 4 female glowlights in that tank, plus cories and a few other tetras. Hard to say whose they were but nothing is going to last long in that tank.

To make the green water, do you just set a jar of water in the window for a while? I have read about growing the algae on old ornaments for the adults to eat using that method and it seems to me that would produce green water as well. I have plenty of algae for my current pair to eat in their community tank so I have never had to try it.
Looks like its time for an experiment.



- Meow -
Post InfoPosted 08-Jan-2007 22:00Profile PM Edit Delete Report 
Cup_of_Lifenoodles
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Otocinclus are generally leaf-litter dwelers and prefer little current. Fry would probably be well suited eating blanched vegetables; youngsters are limnivoric like their parents so the fry would have little use for waterborne algal growth.
Post InfoPosted 09-Jan-2007 04:48Profile AIM MSN PM Edit Delete Report 
Calilasseia
 
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Your best bet would be cultivating algae growing on surfaces for any fry, similar to the "Otocinclus Pet Rock" method I've described here for the adults. When performing a water change upon an aquarium, save some of the old water that you would otherwise discard, pop it in a transparent container of some kind, and site it where it will receive lots of light - ideally sunlight, but failing that, illuminate it with a desk lamp. As for container choice, well, here in the UK the container of choice is a boiled sweet jar of the kind used by confectioners to store loose boiled sweets (sherbet lemons, anyone? ) but in the US, I gather the container of choice would be a one-gallon pickle jar (these are apparently in plentiful supply). Fill your container, illuminate it, then obtain some small rounded rocks (maximum size approx., that of a hen's egg) and/or small pieces of bogwood (if you can get small bogwood pieces, so much the better, because I've found Otocinclus prefer rasping from wood if they have a choice) and drop them in the container. If you use rocks, make sure (apart from them being chemically aquarium safe of course) that they have no sharp edges.

After a few days, the container will have a nice coating of green fur on the walls. You'll have similar green fur on your rocks and bogwood bits. This will provide your Otocinclus, both adults and any fry, with plenty of greenstuff for them to munch on.

Something worth considering is what kind of microscopic animal life might live among the algal threads that supplement the diet of Otocinclus. While Otocinclus are primarily herbivorous, they do eat the creatures that live in the algal mats that form their wild diet, and so are best described as primarily herbivorous aufwuchs feeders (aufwuchs being a German term for those algal mats, originally used for the algal mats in Rift Lakes, but applicable elsewhere). The reason I am minded to consider this issue is that I have witnessed Otocinclus munching on freeze dried Tubifex quite avidly, and furthermore, have a photograph of a specimen munching on a live Bloodworm! So while they need their greenstuff, a modest amount of animal matter seems to be in order too.

While the idea of using silk plants to make the task of managing spawn easier seems like a good idea, you probably won't have to remove the eggs if the parents have sufficient algal mats to graze upon. So you could run with live plants, and possibly increase your chances of success. The kind of plants that Otocinclus are reported to favour in the relatively few aquarium spawning reports tend to be plants such as Ludwigia and Hygrophyla - it's possible that they'd utilise Water Wisteria (which is yet another species of Hygrophyla anyway - it's H. difformis) and they might even utilise Pigny Chain Swords, Echinodorus tenellus, if you have access to those. It's worth experimenting with Lilaeopsis species in addition as possible spawning sites, along with smaller Cryptocoryne species. In any case, the Ludwigia and Hygrophyla type plants will be the premier choices, though of course there's no reason why you can't landscape the breeding aquarium for your Otocinclus ...

I'd suggest in addition that a large water change (50%) resulting in a 2 degree Celsius temperature drop, which is a known spawning stimulus for many Corydoras species that share the home waters of Otocinclus, could prove to be a useful spawning trigger for the Otocinclus too. Though you should prepare yourself for a LOT of experimentation in this regard, precisely because spawning reports in the aquarium for Otocinclus are so infrequent, and hence the guaranteed spawning triggers have yet to be alighted upon.


Panda Catfish fan and keeper/breeder since Christmas 2002
Post InfoPosted 09-Jan-2007 09:53Profile Homepage PM Edit Delete Report 
illustrae
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I would not use fake plants for my otto tank, and I would leave the eggs and fry in with the adults. Larger tanks are easier to keep clean with good water quality and otto fry will be more sensitive to that than adults. If there is limited algae, ottos will rasp on the surface of leaves to get nutrition, which they will not be able to do on silk or plastic.

Also, especially if you use fake plants, cultivating algae will be a MUST!

Hoping that there must be a word for everything I mean...
Post InfoPosted 09-Jan-2007 17:27Profile AIM PM Edit Delete Report 
sunspotkat
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I had definitely planned on cultivating some algae.

The reason that I was thinking to remove the eggs after any spawn was that I had read to remove the eggs and dip in a methylene blue solution to identify which eggs were bad so that they could be removed before fungusing and spoiling the rest of the batch. Is this a reasonable idea? The eggs are supposed to hatch in around 2-3 days. I don't think that the parent ottos would really hurt their eggs or fry. In fact I'm not sure that they would pay much attention to them at all. From what little information there is about the subject, it seems that parent ottos don't attend to their eggs/fry at all. Another concern about keeping the fry in the main tank is the filter intake would suck the fry up. I think it would be more productive to put the fry in their own tank with a gentle sponge filter until they were big enough. Apparently otto fry are so small that it can be hard to feed them and I don't think any netting over a filter intake would keep them from getting sucked up. Any thoughts?

This is going to be a big fun experiment on my part. I love these little fish and want to try and breed them. There isn't much information on spawning them at all so I will be trying lots of different things to see what works, if anything. When I get everything set up, I will try to set up a log here and list everything that I do/try and the success or failure of it.

- Meow -
Post InfoPosted 09-Jan-2007 21:21Profile PM Edit Delete Report 
illustrae
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What kind of filter do you plan to use? If it's a standard HOB type filter, then a piece of filter sponge over the intake will provide additional bio-filotration and prevent fry from getting sucked up.

I have heard of using chemicals to prevent egg fungus, but I don't be lieve it's necessary unless you see a trend of fungussing eggs. Having excellent water quality will diminish this possibility a great deal as well. I personally think that the less you have your hands in the tank, the better. As long as you can keep the tank sparkling clean, induce breeding in the adults, and keep the fry fed, I don't believe there's much more you need to do for them.

Hoping that there must be a word for everything I mean...
Post InfoPosted 10-Jan-2007 17:20Profile AIM PM Edit Delete Report 
sunspotkat
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Okay, I hadn't thought about cutting up a filter sponge pad to put over the intake. It will be a HOB so that might work. I could always turn down the current flow a little if there were fry in the tank as well.

Here is a question. If I decide to just leave any eggs in the tank to hatch, how many fry could live in a 20 gallon long for how long and still keep really clean water quality? Ottos are small but they do poop almost constantly. I was going to get a filter rated for 30 gallons or so and I do weekly water changes on my other tanks. Would I need to do twice weekly water changes on the otto tank?

This is all hypothetical of course. I just figured its smarter to know what basic plan I want to follow before I set up the tank and start. That way if I do succeed in making the adults happy enough to breed I'll know what to do instead of "oh look eggs, now what?" I'd like to carefully track what I do so it could start to be less of an "accident".



- Meow -
Post InfoPosted 10-Jan-2007 17:53Profile PM Edit Delete Report 
Calilasseia
 
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If you're worried about egg fungus, pick up a bottle of Tetra FungiStop. That's what I use with my Pandas when they spawn in the breeding aquarium.

It's specifically formulated (so it says on the bottle) to handle egg fungus problems. So you should be OK with it - it it's safe to use with fishes as fussy about their spawning conditions as Pandas, it shoudl be OK with Otocinclus too.


Panda Catfish fan and keeper/breeder since Christmas 2002
Post InfoPosted 11-Jan-2007 02:04Profile Homepage PM Edit Delete Report 
Cup_of_Lifenoodles
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In my experience of breeding non-ancistrinae loricariids, I have found, by far, the best food for developing fry of largely herbivorous species is ground up spirulina flake and boiled (blanched) greens. The problem with cultivating algae is that you enver know exactly what sort of algal growth you'll get, and given that otocinclus feed primarily on one strain ("brown", you don't wnt to take that chance waiting on some starving fry. Besides, most people greatly under-estimate what a healthy limnivore needs to feed on to maintain a steady a productive growth cycle. A few fry can easily strip a small rock in hours, and an adult female probably can do that in mere minutes.
Post InfoPosted 11-Jan-2007 05:46Profile AIM MSN PM Edit Delete Report 
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